This old body is wearing a bit thin, I suppose.
The final First Doctor story and the introduction of the Cybermen. You would think that this story would be more memorable given all that it has going for it. But, it is almost completely unknown outside of those two points and that probably tells you all that you really need to know about the plot of this story.
Plot Summary
The TARDIS lands just outside an international underground base in Antarctica in December 1986 used to track and communicate with various space missions. The TARDIS crew is arrested by base personnel and brought inside. However, they are shunted to the side when the base begins having issues with one of their recent rocket launches. The space craft is off course and suffering a power drain.
Observing quietly, the Doctor formulates a theory and offers it to the CO, General Cutler, on a slip of paper. Cutler ignores him but his senior scientific advisor, Barclay, takes the note and stuffs it in his pocket. As they try and aid the spacecraft, it drifts further off course and loses more power. The spacecraft also reports seeing a new planet approaching Earth and send back images of the planet.
The Doctor points out on the images that the land masses are very similar to Earth except that they are inverted. He then directs Barclay to read his note and Barclay is astonished to read that same statement. General Cutler, suspicious of their origins, orders a team topside to break into the TARDIS. As they head out, a spacecraft lands nearby and a group of Cybermen approach in the snow. They catch the team by surprise and kill them. They put on the team's cloaks and slip into the base.
The team in the base continues to work to try and get the spacecraft down. However the Cybermen appear in the base and seize control. They knock out General Cutler and lock Ben in the A/V room when he tries to resist. They force the base to send a signal back to control in Geneva that everything is fine.
The Cybermen do not impede the team in attempting to get the spacecraft down. However, they warn that the attempt is futile. The spacecraft attempts to slow down to reenter but it's fuel reserves are exhausted and it enters the atmosphere at too high a velocity. It burns up as it enters.
In the A/V room, Ben turns on the projector and then calls the guard. As the Cybermen enters, it is blinded by the projector and Ben seizes his weapon. He guns him down and sneaks out. Ben slips the weapon to General Cutler as he regains consciousness. Cutler then guns down the Cybermen. Cutler signals Geneva about what happened and warns them of further attacks. Cutler is informed that a second spacecraft was launched to attempt to aid the first one before it was destroyed and it is being piloted by Cutler's son.
Before being killed, the Cybermen informed the base that they intended to drain the energy of the Earth and transport the inhabitants back to Mondas to be converted to Cybermen. They begin to read power drains across the globe. They also spy a fleet of spacecraft approaching Earth. Cutler orders his men topside to set up a defense using the captured Cybermen weapons.
The Doctor suddenly collapses and is taken away to the barracks to recuperate. Cutler, becoming increasingly unhinged in fear for his son's life decides to launch a Z-bomb rocket at Mondas to destroy it. Barclay is horrified and warns against the potential fallout. Cutler ignores him. Cutler phones Geneva to get permission but is denied the outright use of the bomb. He is however granted rights to use methods he deems necessary to fight the Cybermen. Cutler uses this as a fig leaf to prepare the bomb.
Ben protests, stating that the Doctor assured them that Mondas would be unable to control the energy draw and would burn up if given the time, meaning they only had to hold out against the Cybermen. Cutler, refusing to be inactive, orders him taken to the barracks with the Doctor. Polly is allowed to stay behind and she works on Barclay to help them stop the missile launch while Cutler and others make the missile operational.
Barclay goes with Polly to the room with Ben and the Doctor, who is still unconscious. Barclay gives Ben instructions on how to sabotage the rocket so that it will not launch but be undetectable for several weeks. Ben sneaks through the air ducts and lowers himself into the launch bay as the workers leave. Barclay heads outside the room, distracting the scientists with mathematical checks.
One Cyberman spacecraft lands but the squad of Cybermen that emerge are cut down by their own weapons hidden in the snow. Military men seize the weapons of the fallen to add to their arsenal.
Cutler prepares to launch the rocket so that it's blast will occur while his son's spacecraft is on the far side of Earth. He notices that Barclay is missing and goes looking for him. Alarmed at the lack of people inside the silo, Cutler storms in and finds Ben in a compartment. He pulls him out and throws him off the gantry. Suffering a concussion, Ben is taken back to the control room to be looked at by Polly while Cutler orders the launch of the missile.
The missile fails to launch due to Ben's sabotage and Cutler reacts angrily. The Doctor reenters the room and Cutler turns on him as the source of the failure. He is momentarily distracted by a call from his son who has the power of his ship flickering on and off. He ignores warnings from the communications officer about an approaching Cyberman ship. When communication is lost, Cutler flies into a blind rage and prepares to shoot the Doctor as the source of the problem.
Cybermen enter the base at that moment and General Cutler is killed when he shoots at them. The Cybermen order the retraction of the missile and the removal of the nuclear device. Ben, Barclay, Dyson and a couple of other base personnel are sent in to do the job while Polly is taken to the Cyberman ship as a hostage. The Doctor is initially left in the control room to communicate with Geneva but he is also eventually taken to the Cyberman ship.
In the missile silo, Ben and the others work but eventually realize that the Cybermen have become aware of the potential of Mondas absorbing too much energy and are planning to use the Z-bomb warhead to destroy Earth as a means of stopping the flow. Ben also realizes that the Cybermen are vulnerable to radiation as they refuse to enter the room. Ben has the crew all lie down while he pounds on the door as though they are all dying of radiation poisoning. The Cyberguard enters and immediately buckles from radiation exposure. Ben seizes his weapon. They also then cut the communications out of the room.
Ben and Barclay pull the radioactive rods out of the nuclear reactor. They give them to the crew who hide down the hallway. As the Cybermen approach due to the time limit of warhead removal being up, Ben lures them towards the door, felling one with the captured weapon. The crewmen approach with the radioactive rods, weakening the Cybermen to allow Ben to cut them down with the weapon.
The group returns to the control room where they use a Cyberman communications device to lure the rest out of the ship and attack them. As the Cybermen enter, they notice Mondas beginning to burn up due to energy absorption. As the planet begins to crack and disintegrate, the Cybermen collapse and wither. Barclay signals Geneva and finds similar instances around the globe. They also reacquire communication with the orbiting spacecraft flown by Cutler's son to find him ok and his fuel levels stabilized.
Ben leaves the base and pulls Polly and the Doctor from their bonds in the Cyberman spaceship. Polly is fine but the Doctor is exhausted and barely conscious. The three manage to get back to the TARDIS where the Doctor briefly locks them out. He thinks better of it and takes off after letting them in. As they enter, he collapses and regenerates into the Second Doctor.
Analysis
Despite having the introduction of the Cybermen and the First Doctor regenerating, The Tenth Planet is ultimately not a particularly good story. I think a good portion of this is due to how much William Hartnell was sidelined due to poor health but there are several faults that lead to it's overall problem.
The story starts off fairly well with the space capsule, the arrival and detention of the Doctor and his companions and the appearance of Mondas. It even ends well with the Cybermen arriving and killing the team trying to get into the TARDIS. It does fairly well as a start up. But Episode Two is where things start to go downhill. The Cybermen seize the base and then we are treated to a heavy dose of exposition where the Cybermen talk at length about their plans. While I'm sure things are interesting from a technical point of view, it doesn't make for very compelling drama.
The story picks up again when the initial Cyberman invasion is driven back but this also starts the two central mistakes of the story. First is the removal of the Doctor. This obviously couldn't be helped as William Hartnell fell ill. It works to reinforce the idea that the First Doctor is dying and needs to regenerate, but much of the Doctor's lines are split between Ben and Barclay and it just doesn't ring quite as true to see the companions going about with some other guy when it should be the Doctor.
The second mistake is the shift in villain focus. Through the first two episodes, General Cutler is a by-the-book military man who is a bit of a jerk but ultimately trying to do the right thing. The potential loss of his son unhinges him and the Cybermen take a backseat as the villain to Cutler. This is a problem as Cutler has done nothing to deserve villain status and his shift to crazy should cause an uprising among his own men. It's also an unnecessary stalling detour as the Cybermen should always be the main focus enemy. Episode Two ends with a fleet of Cyberwarships approaching and they just seem to go on stall mode for an episode while the General goes Dr. Strangelove. It takes what should be a ramp up of the excitement and turns it into a moment of treading water.
A third problem I have with this story is that ultimately nothing happens. One of my biggest pet peeves is where the hero fights but eventually the villain seems to achieve his goal only to find out that achieving this goal results in their own destruction (Planet of the Spiders is a good example of this). In this story, the Doctor and the people of Earth need to do almost nothing. Mondas has already made the critical mistake of trying to absorb too much energy and will destroy itself. The only thing the Doctor and the others need to do is stall the Cybermen to not allow them to stop the process by destroying Earth. It seems overly shortsighted of the Cybermen not to be prepared for that and it also seems to happen far too quickly. There is no epic struggle where a hard choice has to be made nor is there a grand adventure to make the destruction happen. Instead it just happens while nearly everyone waits around.
This is a good story for Ben, I will admit. With the Doctor sidelined for nearly two full episodes, he gets a lot to do and is the real man of action the way Ian and Steven were in earlier days. Polly gets a bit sidelined with her conversion of Barclay in Episode Three being her only real action the entire story.
It's an unfortunate end for the Doctor. He more or less stands around for the first two episodes and the third where he was supposed to start getting involved is where William Harntell got sick. He has a momentary bit of shine at the beginning of Episode Four, especially with his acknowledgement that he is wearing a bit thin, but the second half has him absent or unconscious. It's not a noble end as you would expect for the First Doctor, but it does reveal a bit of sad truth about what truly growing old would be like. The First and Eleventh Doctors remain the only ones to regenerate due to old age but unlike the Eleventh Doctor who regenerated in triumph, the First Doctor simply wears out and wears out as you would expect an old man to. It is authentic, but it is also quite sad.
For the most part, I like the original Cybermen. They were a bit too bulky with their accoutrements but with more skin exposed and a cloth covering rather than metal, they seemed to reflect their humanoid roots more. The metal style which replaced them in The Moonbase is more iconic but it also led them further down the path of robots rather than cybernized humanoids. But I can also get around that with some head cannon. Since the true Mondasian Cybermen died when Mondas failed to provide them energy, the Cybermen left in other parts of the galaxy had to be of a more robust (metal) design and thus became more robotized. I also like imagining that the fleet that arrives in The Moonbase went looking for them after Mondas failed to reappear and assumed that Earth had destroyed Mondas in an attack rather than an energy mishap, leading to their planned destruction of life on Earth.
There is not much to say about the side characters except Barclay. He did a decent job stepping in for the Doctor in Episode Three but it would have worked better if he had had more than a couple lines in the first two episodes. I did like the astronauts in the first capsule and they did a good job of making you like them and feel sympathetic for them when they were killed in Episode Two. It is also a nice bit of history that the pilot was of African decent and it was not an issue. It was just a job filled by a guy and it's nice to see that in any show set in the 1960s.
Overall, I can't get to excited about this one. There is just not enough to engage you full time. The Doctor does nothing notable for his send off and the Cybermen become so radically different that you might as well consider The Moonbase as their introduction. General Cutler annoyed me and his becoming the villain was an unnecessary distraction from the Cybermen. It's good to watch for the regeneration and for some context behind later Cyberman stories, but it is generally a bore to just watch on it's own.
Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
The Moonbase
Then we'll hit 'em with some of this Polly cocktail
The Moonbase marked the return of the Cybermen, their makeover into the more familiar metallic casing and the point where the Second Doctor seemed to come into his own. The Moonbase also laid out what would become the familiar format of Second Doctor stories in the form of a base under siege with the Doctor figuring out the critical weakness of the enemy to exploit. It also is half missing, but fortunately has some very nice animation to fill in with Episodes One and Three.
Plot Summary
After a bumpy ride, the Doctor manages to land the TARDIS, not on Mars as intended, but on the surface of the moon in 2070. Ben and Polly convince him to explore outside. They go out wearing spacesuits and the companions have fun bouncing around in the low gravity. Jamie over-jumps and crashes outside the moonbase, concussing himself. He is taken inside by two men working at the base and the Doctor, Ben and Polly follow.
In the base's command center, a technician falls ill, black lines developing on his skin. The base commander, Dr. Hobson, orders him taken to the infirmary although little can be done as the base doctor was the first one taken ill. The Doctor, Ben and Polly are taken to him where the Doctor is mistaken for a replacement doctor sent by Earth. Polly heads to the infirmary to check on Jamie while the Doctor and Ben learn about the Gravitron, a gravity beam used to control tides and other weather phenomena on Earth.
A fourth crew member is taken ill and the Doctor and Ben head back with him to the infirmary to study this virus. Jamie moans in a delirious state about a phantom piper who stalks the McCrimmon clan. The Doctor studies the base doctor's symptoms and then sends Ben back to the command room to help and observe.
Hobson radios Earth to request help and a new full staff doctor. Earth responds that they will accommodate him on the next supply run in a month. Hobson is unhappy about this but can do nothing. One of the technicians note that he picked up feedback during the transmission suggesting they are being monitored.
Hobson's second in command, Benoit, forces him to take a break and sends Ben down to the store room to help Ralph with preparing a resupply list. Ralph sends Ben to catalogue one end of the store room food supply while he works the other. A Cyberman appears from the shadows and kills Ralph, dragging his body away. Ben heads back to the command center to report on Ralph's disappearance, leaving both Benoit and Hobson confused and concerned.
The Doctor enters and tells Hobson that the doctor has died. They head back to the infirmary where Polly tells them she thought she saw something enter the room and then duck back out. The group pulls the sheet back to examine the dead doctor but find the doctor's body has gone. Hobson heads back to command while the Doctor and Ben follow to investigate some more, leaving Polly alone with Jamie. Jamie calls out for water and Polly leaves to get him some. As she does so, a Cyberman reenters the room with Jamie taking him for the phantom piper.
The Cyberman ignores Jamie and grabs a second patient, taking him from the room. Polly sees the back of him and screams, summoning the Doctor and Ben. Ben runs up to the command center to fetch Hobson who comes down. Polly relates her story but Hobson dismisses it saying the Cybermen disappeared after the destruction of Mondas nearly 100 years ago. Hobson is growing increasingly wary of the Doctor and his companions, desiring them to leave. The Doctor strikes a deal with him that they will leave if the Doctor hasn't figured out the cause of the illness within 24 hours. Hobson agrees.
In the command center, Hobson orders a series of tests as the Gravitron is not aligning properly and that is beginning to have serious consequences on Earth. As they are running test, the Doctor enters and collects hair, skin and soil samples from each of them. While he is away, a Cyberman enters the infirmary and takes another infected patient. It knocks out both Polly and Jamie with a bolt of energy, but the Doctor is able to revive them after it leaves.
The command crew eventually discover that one of the control arrays has parts either damaged or missing and that they began happening shortly after the Doctor and his companions arrived. Benoit also notes another in a series of momentary atmospheric pressure drops that had been happening since shortly before the virus emerged. Hobson dispatches two men to check the array while he and Benoit head down to the infirmary to confront the Doctor.
In the infirmary, the Doctor has failed to make any discoveries. When Hobson comes down to get them to leave, he fakes having made a discovery and ushers them out into the waiting room. He tells Polly to bring them some coffee as an added distraction.
Outside, the two men sent to check on the array are attacked by Cybermen. Inside, one of the crew who Polly has served falls ill with the virus. As he is carried to a bed, the Doctor realizes that the virus is in the sugar. He takes a sample and discovers a neurological virus. He informs Hobson that the Cybermen must be behind this but Hobson scoffs saying that they had searched the whole base and found nothing.
The Doctor pulls Hobson aside as whispers as to whether his men searched the infirmary. Hobson realizes that they never did as it was always occupied. As he does, a Cybermen rises from under a bed sheet and advances on them. The Cyberman orders them to surrender. One technician tries to get behind him to attack but is gunned down by a second Cyberman entering. The rest of the crew surrender.
The Cybermen take Hobson, the Doctor and the other crew back to the control room, leaving Ben and Polly in the infirmary with Jamie, having determined that the three of them are of no value but also no threat. In the control room, Hobson and the others are placed in one corner while the men infected with the neurovirus are brought in and made to work the Gravitron. The Cybermen intend to use the Gravitron to manipulate the Earth's weather to destroy all human life from the planet and eliminate any potential threat.
While the Cybermen are focused on working the Gravitron, the Doctor sneaks around, determining how to disrupt the signals to the controlled men and finding a weakness in the Cybermen. He hits on the idea that they are vulnerable to the extreme gravitational effects produced by the Gravitron.
Back in the infirmary, Jamie comes back around feeling better. Polly hits on an idea of using solvents to dissolve the plastic components of the life support systems in their chest. She and Ben blend several different solvents together from the chemical stores and pour them in spray bottles. Each companion gets one bottle and they sneak towards the control room.
The three companions burst in and spray the Cybermen with the solvent mixture. It causes the plastic components to melt and the Cybermen collapse, choking on melted plastic. Hobson immediately pulls the controlled men out of the Gravitron control area, having collapsed due to the sonic strain. They are taken to the infirmary to recover.
Benoit heads outside to see if he can find the two men who were sent out earlier. He finds their suits but not the men. He is attacked by one Cyberman but the gun fails to discharge. Benoit runs back towards the base with the Cyberman chasing him. Ben meets him at the door and tosses a small glass bottle of the "Polly cocktail" into the pursing Cyberman's chest, killing him.
Hobson orders a lockdown of the base while the Cybermen land two more ships and begin marching out to take the base by force. With the doors sealed, the Cybermen are unable to break in, their previous hole having also been sealed off. The Cybermen temporarily stop their advance when a ship from Earth is observed approaching. The Cybermen increase their control signal and reanimate Dr. Evans. Evans knocks out the orderly and sneaks into the Gravitron control room. He then uses the Gravitron to knock the Earth ship out of orbit and into the sun. Evans then uses the Gravitron to continue the Cybermen's plans to attack Earth.
With the outside threat gone, the Cybermen renew their attack on the base. They fire small lasers at the base and manage to breach the dome, causing atmosphere to leak out. Hobson and Benoit manage to seal it off using a heavy plastic tray Polly had brought in to serve coffee. The loss of atmosphere knocks Evans out and he is pulled out and taken back to the infirmary.
The Doctor orders Jamie and Ben to seal off the infirmary as he expects the other controlled men to attack which they do just as Jamie and Ben arrive there. The two men barricade the door with metal benches and chairs. They then retreat and do the same for the entrance to the control room.
With additional Cybermen filing across the moon's surface, they prepare to launch heavy weapons at the base. The Doctor notes that the Gravitron is still at full power and stands his ground, offering an easy target. The Cybermen blast their heavy gun at him but the gravity output from the Gravitron deflects the beam. His theory validated, the Doctor orders the Gravitron lowered as close to the surface as possible. Benoit lowers the angle of attack and Hobson disengages the safety system to allow it to go even lower.
The gravity wave pushes the Cybermen up off the moon and into space. Their ships also are thrown backwards and off into space. The crew celebrates the defeat of the Cybermen while the Doctor and his companions slip away quietly. They make their way back to the TARDIS and take off with the Doctor activating his time scanner to give them a glimpse of what is in store next. They recoil as they see a large crab claw on the screen.
Analysis
Overall I liked The Moonbase but it is a good example that has such good build up and then peters out to an almost disappointing conclusion. So much of the story depends on atmosphere and the use of a "phantom in the shadows" motif. Once that's gone, it turns into a hold off an attack story and one that is resolved very quickly and where the Doctor is not the central focus and that is a bit disappointing.
I do like the Doctor in this one. This is the first real and true appearance of the dark and plotting Second Doctor that became more the staple. Up until now he had been a bit theatrical and this is the one where he finally settles in to a serious mode, but not losing that sense of whimsy. His extraction of samples from the crew is one of those light-hearted moments of oddity that make the Second Doctor so enjoyable.
The companions, apart from Jamie, were quite good in this story. It is fairly well known that this story was written before Innes Lloyd came down and announced that Jamie would be coming on as a companion so a hasty rewrite was given to it. Jamie was essentially put on the shelf for two and a half episodes and then given a couple of Ben's lines and substituted in where a generic member of the base team would have been in. Ben does the standard action man but it does give him a lot of interface with various people. He actually interacts with them more than the Doctor does.
Polly comes off probably best of all, even if she does slip in and out of women's stereotypes. Polly stays in the infirmary to watch Jamie but she also is the Doctor's main assistant when trying to figure out the virus. She comes up with the solvent cocktail but doesn't know what the primary ingredients of solvents are. She forces Ben and Jamie to let her fight the Cybermen along side them but she twice is relegated to coffee detail, even if one of them is a distracting maneuver for the Doctor. I think even with these up and downs, Polly proves herself quite worthy in this story and both her and Ben are given fairly meaty roles that do their characters justice.
Two of the most enjoyable characters were actually part of the guest cast. The Doctor suffered a bit from the lack of attention but that was because Hobson and Benoit were so good at taking that attention. Hobson especially was a commanding presence and had a real take charge attitude. What's more, unlike base commanders in other "base under siege" stories, he is competent and never gives in to madness or despair. Because of this, the Doctor stays in a supporting role as more of an idea man rather than rearing himself into a major leadership role as you might see in The Ice Warriors for example.
Benoit was also a place that the Doctor could have slipped in to but again, you have such a good actor and a well defined role. Benoit is a solid second-in-command who respects his superior and is always looking out for what is best for the mission and the men under them. You see genuine respect that the characters have towards each other and it both plays well and is quite engaging, even if it means that the Doctor doesn't get to step in. Benoit also does a good job of not falling into easy French stereotypes. He has a heavy accent and descends to swearing in French but the actor is French so has an easy flow. He never goes over the top, giving in to expected cheap reference as to how French he is and it is nice to see that (in contrast to the Italian stereotype in The Tenth Planet).
The Cybermen did well in their redesign. It is interesting to note that most of the design changes were made simply because the original suits were just so hard to maintain and were so hard on the actors. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think the changes worked quite well. There were traces of the humans that became the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet which seemed to make them a bit more relatable and less scary to me. Robotizing them more drained that relatability and the coldness is what makes them so frightening. I personally think the Cybermen seen in The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen were the most frightening versions. The voice helped with that, although I'm glad I've been able to have the subtitles on when watching both these stories as while it makes the Cybermen scary, it's also a devil of a time to fully understand what they are saying.
So with so many good elements, why does the story end so poorly? I think it is the way the story shifted. The first three parts were almost like a haunted house story. The enemy was within the house, moving stealthily and picking off people one at a time. In Episode Three, you have the Cybermen strike and with only three take over the whole base. That ends the secrecy but you have a prisoner tale now and our heroes triumph over their captors. That then leaves Episode Four.
Episode Four's primary problems are actually due to padding I think. The Doctor effectively figures out that the Gravitron must be used against the Cybermen in Episode Three but spends nearly 2/3's of Episode four waiting around before saying anything. There is also the inconsistency of the Cybermen attacks. One squad of Cybermen was able to dig through and into the base but three ships full are held back by secured doors? That seems odd.
I can understand falling back to deal with the ship from Earth, but once that is done the attacks should be consistent and constant. They successfully breach the dome but then stop once Hobson and Benoit plug the hole. Why not make a new hole? Why not keep firing until all atmosphere in the base is boiled away? Instead they make one hole and then call off the attack to bring in a heavy cannon, which might actually damage the Gravitron, which they seem keen on avoiding. Also, why does the heavy cannon blast get deflected by the Gravity beam when the small firing did not? The Cybermen attacks just seem almost haphazard and indifferent.
It is also a bit underwhelming to have the Gravitron simply fling the Cybermen away. It is done so easily and so quickly that it feels like flinging away a bug that has landed on your arm and undercuts the power of the Cybermen even more than the intermittent attacks did. I think a far better solution would have been to use the Gravitron to push away the Cybermen ships and most of the men at the beginning of Episode Four but then the rest of the story being to fend off the remaining ten or fifteen who managed to breach the base. Have Ben and Polly use the last of the cocktail so that the Doctor has to step forward and think of a way to defeat the last group as they try to take final control. That would have made the threat far more personal and given the Doctor more of a central focus in trying to outthink the enemy.
Although it ended somewhat poorly, this is still a good story. The animation of Episodes One and Three is done very well and actually adds to the atmosphere. I actually thought the tension was higher and better done in the animated episodes than in Episode Two, although that was still done pretty well. The characters are good and there is a fairly nice balance in how everyone works together, apart from the limitation of how the Doctor is used. I'd easily watch it again, although I still wish there could have been an ending that suited the build up better.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
The Moonbase marked the return of the Cybermen, their makeover into the more familiar metallic casing and the point where the Second Doctor seemed to come into his own. The Moonbase also laid out what would become the familiar format of Second Doctor stories in the form of a base under siege with the Doctor figuring out the critical weakness of the enemy to exploit. It also is half missing, but fortunately has some very nice animation to fill in with Episodes One and Three.
Plot Summary
After a bumpy ride, the Doctor manages to land the TARDIS, not on Mars as intended, but on the surface of the moon in 2070. Ben and Polly convince him to explore outside. They go out wearing spacesuits and the companions have fun bouncing around in the low gravity. Jamie over-jumps and crashes outside the moonbase, concussing himself. He is taken inside by two men working at the base and the Doctor, Ben and Polly follow.
In the base's command center, a technician falls ill, black lines developing on his skin. The base commander, Dr. Hobson, orders him taken to the infirmary although little can be done as the base doctor was the first one taken ill. The Doctor, Ben and Polly are taken to him where the Doctor is mistaken for a replacement doctor sent by Earth. Polly heads to the infirmary to check on Jamie while the Doctor and Ben learn about the Gravitron, a gravity beam used to control tides and other weather phenomena on Earth.
A fourth crew member is taken ill and the Doctor and Ben head back with him to the infirmary to study this virus. Jamie moans in a delirious state about a phantom piper who stalks the McCrimmon clan. The Doctor studies the base doctor's symptoms and then sends Ben back to the command room to help and observe.
Hobson radios Earth to request help and a new full staff doctor. Earth responds that they will accommodate him on the next supply run in a month. Hobson is unhappy about this but can do nothing. One of the technicians note that he picked up feedback during the transmission suggesting they are being monitored.
Hobson's second in command, Benoit, forces him to take a break and sends Ben down to the store room to help Ralph with preparing a resupply list. Ralph sends Ben to catalogue one end of the store room food supply while he works the other. A Cyberman appears from the shadows and kills Ralph, dragging his body away. Ben heads back to the command center to report on Ralph's disappearance, leaving both Benoit and Hobson confused and concerned.
The Doctor enters and tells Hobson that the doctor has died. They head back to the infirmary where Polly tells them she thought she saw something enter the room and then duck back out. The group pulls the sheet back to examine the dead doctor but find the doctor's body has gone. Hobson heads back to command while the Doctor and Ben follow to investigate some more, leaving Polly alone with Jamie. Jamie calls out for water and Polly leaves to get him some. As she does so, a Cyberman reenters the room with Jamie taking him for the phantom piper.
The Cyberman ignores Jamie and grabs a second patient, taking him from the room. Polly sees the back of him and screams, summoning the Doctor and Ben. Ben runs up to the command center to fetch Hobson who comes down. Polly relates her story but Hobson dismisses it saying the Cybermen disappeared after the destruction of Mondas nearly 100 years ago. Hobson is growing increasingly wary of the Doctor and his companions, desiring them to leave. The Doctor strikes a deal with him that they will leave if the Doctor hasn't figured out the cause of the illness within 24 hours. Hobson agrees.
In the command center, Hobson orders a series of tests as the Gravitron is not aligning properly and that is beginning to have serious consequences on Earth. As they are running test, the Doctor enters and collects hair, skin and soil samples from each of them. While he is away, a Cyberman enters the infirmary and takes another infected patient. It knocks out both Polly and Jamie with a bolt of energy, but the Doctor is able to revive them after it leaves.
The command crew eventually discover that one of the control arrays has parts either damaged or missing and that they began happening shortly after the Doctor and his companions arrived. Benoit also notes another in a series of momentary atmospheric pressure drops that had been happening since shortly before the virus emerged. Hobson dispatches two men to check the array while he and Benoit head down to the infirmary to confront the Doctor.
In the infirmary, the Doctor has failed to make any discoveries. When Hobson comes down to get them to leave, he fakes having made a discovery and ushers them out into the waiting room. He tells Polly to bring them some coffee as an added distraction.
Outside, the two men sent to check on the array are attacked by Cybermen. Inside, one of the crew who Polly has served falls ill with the virus. As he is carried to a bed, the Doctor realizes that the virus is in the sugar. He takes a sample and discovers a neurological virus. He informs Hobson that the Cybermen must be behind this but Hobson scoffs saying that they had searched the whole base and found nothing.
The Doctor pulls Hobson aside as whispers as to whether his men searched the infirmary. Hobson realizes that they never did as it was always occupied. As he does, a Cybermen rises from under a bed sheet and advances on them. The Cyberman orders them to surrender. One technician tries to get behind him to attack but is gunned down by a second Cyberman entering. The rest of the crew surrender.
The Cybermen take Hobson, the Doctor and the other crew back to the control room, leaving Ben and Polly in the infirmary with Jamie, having determined that the three of them are of no value but also no threat. In the control room, Hobson and the others are placed in one corner while the men infected with the neurovirus are brought in and made to work the Gravitron. The Cybermen intend to use the Gravitron to manipulate the Earth's weather to destroy all human life from the planet and eliminate any potential threat.
While the Cybermen are focused on working the Gravitron, the Doctor sneaks around, determining how to disrupt the signals to the controlled men and finding a weakness in the Cybermen. He hits on the idea that they are vulnerable to the extreme gravitational effects produced by the Gravitron.
Back in the infirmary, Jamie comes back around feeling better. Polly hits on an idea of using solvents to dissolve the plastic components of the life support systems in their chest. She and Ben blend several different solvents together from the chemical stores and pour them in spray bottles. Each companion gets one bottle and they sneak towards the control room.
The three companions burst in and spray the Cybermen with the solvent mixture. It causes the plastic components to melt and the Cybermen collapse, choking on melted plastic. Hobson immediately pulls the controlled men out of the Gravitron control area, having collapsed due to the sonic strain. They are taken to the infirmary to recover.
Benoit heads outside to see if he can find the two men who were sent out earlier. He finds their suits but not the men. He is attacked by one Cyberman but the gun fails to discharge. Benoit runs back towards the base with the Cyberman chasing him. Ben meets him at the door and tosses a small glass bottle of the "Polly cocktail" into the pursing Cyberman's chest, killing him.
Hobson orders a lockdown of the base while the Cybermen land two more ships and begin marching out to take the base by force. With the doors sealed, the Cybermen are unable to break in, their previous hole having also been sealed off. The Cybermen temporarily stop their advance when a ship from Earth is observed approaching. The Cybermen increase their control signal and reanimate Dr. Evans. Evans knocks out the orderly and sneaks into the Gravitron control room. He then uses the Gravitron to knock the Earth ship out of orbit and into the sun. Evans then uses the Gravitron to continue the Cybermen's plans to attack Earth.
With the outside threat gone, the Cybermen renew their attack on the base. They fire small lasers at the base and manage to breach the dome, causing atmosphere to leak out. Hobson and Benoit manage to seal it off using a heavy plastic tray Polly had brought in to serve coffee. The loss of atmosphere knocks Evans out and he is pulled out and taken back to the infirmary.
The Doctor orders Jamie and Ben to seal off the infirmary as he expects the other controlled men to attack which they do just as Jamie and Ben arrive there. The two men barricade the door with metal benches and chairs. They then retreat and do the same for the entrance to the control room.
With additional Cybermen filing across the moon's surface, they prepare to launch heavy weapons at the base. The Doctor notes that the Gravitron is still at full power and stands his ground, offering an easy target. The Cybermen blast their heavy gun at him but the gravity output from the Gravitron deflects the beam. His theory validated, the Doctor orders the Gravitron lowered as close to the surface as possible. Benoit lowers the angle of attack and Hobson disengages the safety system to allow it to go even lower.
The gravity wave pushes the Cybermen up off the moon and into space. Their ships also are thrown backwards and off into space. The crew celebrates the defeat of the Cybermen while the Doctor and his companions slip away quietly. They make their way back to the TARDIS and take off with the Doctor activating his time scanner to give them a glimpse of what is in store next. They recoil as they see a large crab claw on the screen.
Analysis
Overall I liked The Moonbase but it is a good example that has such good build up and then peters out to an almost disappointing conclusion. So much of the story depends on atmosphere and the use of a "phantom in the shadows" motif. Once that's gone, it turns into a hold off an attack story and one that is resolved very quickly and where the Doctor is not the central focus and that is a bit disappointing.
I do like the Doctor in this one. This is the first real and true appearance of the dark and plotting Second Doctor that became more the staple. Up until now he had been a bit theatrical and this is the one where he finally settles in to a serious mode, but not losing that sense of whimsy. His extraction of samples from the crew is one of those light-hearted moments of oddity that make the Second Doctor so enjoyable.
The companions, apart from Jamie, were quite good in this story. It is fairly well known that this story was written before Innes Lloyd came down and announced that Jamie would be coming on as a companion so a hasty rewrite was given to it. Jamie was essentially put on the shelf for two and a half episodes and then given a couple of Ben's lines and substituted in where a generic member of the base team would have been in. Ben does the standard action man but it does give him a lot of interface with various people. He actually interacts with them more than the Doctor does.
Polly comes off probably best of all, even if she does slip in and out of women's stereotypes. Polly stays in the infirmary to watch Jamie but she also is the Doctor's main assistant when trying to figure out the virus. She comes up with the solvent cocktail but doesn't know what the primary ingredients of solvents are. She forces Ben and Jamie to let her fight the Cybermen along side them but she twice is relegated to coffee detail, even if one of them is a distracting maneuver for the Doctor. I think even with these up and downs, Polly proves herself quite worthy in this story and both her and Ben are given fairly meaty roles that do their characters justice.
Two of the most enjoyable characters were actually part of the guest cast. The Doctor suffered a bit from the lack of attention but that was because Hobson and Benoit were so good at taking that attention. Hobson especially was a commanding presence and had a real take charge attitude. What's more, unlike base commanders in other "base under siege" stories, he is competent and never gives in to madness or despair. Because of this, the Doctor stays in a supporting role as more of an idea man rather than rearing himself into a major leadership role as you might see in The Ice Warriors for example.
Benoit was also a place that the Doctor could have slipped in to but again, you have such a good actor and a well defined role. Benoit is a solid second-in-command who respects his superior and is always looking out for what is best for the mission and the men under them. You see genuine respect that the characters have towards each other and it both plays well and is quite engaging, even if it means that the Doctor doesn't get to step in. Benoit also does a good job of not falling into easy French stereotypes. He has a heavy accent and descends to swearing in French but the actor is French so has an easy flow. He never goes over the top, giving in to expected cheap reference as to how French he is and it is nice to see that (in contrast to the Italian stereotype in The Tenth Planet).
The Cybermen did well in their redesign. It is interesting to note that most of the design changes were made simply because the original suits were just so hard to maintain and were so hard on the actors. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think the changes worked quite well. There were traces of the humans that became the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet which seemed to make them a bit more relatable and less scary to me. Robotizing them more drained that relatability and the coldness is what makes them so frightening. I personally think the Cybermen seen in The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen were the most frightening versions. The voice helped with that, although I'm glad I've been able to have the subtitles on when watching both these stories as while it makes the Cybermen scary, it's also a devil of a time to fully understand what they are saying.
So with so many good elements, why does the story end so poorly? I think it is the way the story shifted. The first three parts were almost like a haunted house story. The enemy was within the house, moving stealthily and picking off people one at a time. In Episode Three, you have the Cybermen strike and with only three take over the whole base. That ends the secrecy but you have a prisoner tale now and our heroes triumph over their captors. That then leaves Episode Four.
Episode Four's primary problems are actually due to padding I think. The Doctor effectively figures out that the Gravitron must be used against the Cybermen in Episode Three but spends nearly 2/3's of Episode four waiting around before saying anything. There is also the inconsistency of the Cybermen attacks. One squad of Cybermen was able to dig through and into the base but three ships full are held back by secured doors? That seems odd.
I can understand falling back to deal with the ship from Earth, but once that is done the attacks should be consistent and constant. They successfully breach the dome but then stop once Hobson and Benoit plug the hole. Why not make a new hole? Why not keep firing until all atmosphere in the base is boiled away? Instead they make one hole and then call off the attack to bring in a heavy cannon, which might actually damage the Gravitron, which they seem keen on avoiding. Also, why does the heavy cannon blast get deflected by the Gravity beam when the small firing did not? The Cybermen attacks just seem almost haphazard and indifferent.
It is also a bit underwhelming to have the Gravitron simply fling the Cybermen away. It is done so easily and so quickly that it feels like flinging away a bug that has landed on your arm and undercuts the power of the Cybermen even more than the intermittent attacks did. I think a far better solution would have been to use the Gravitron to push away the Cybermen ships and most of the men at the beginning of Episode Four but then the rest of the story being to fend off the remaining ten or fifteen who managed to breach the base. Have Ben and Polly use the last of the cocktail so that the Doctor has to step forward and think of a way to defeat the last group as they try to take final control. That would have made the threat far more personal and given the Doctor more of a central focus in trying to outthink the enemy.
Although it ended somewhat poorly, this is still a good story. The animation of Episodes One and Three is done very well and actually adds to the atmosphere. I actually thought the tension was higher and better done in the animated episodes than in Episode Two, although that was still done pretty well. The characters are good and there is a fairly nice balance in how everyone works together, apart from the limitation of how the Doctor is used. I'd easily watch it again, although I still wish there could have been an ending that suited the build up better.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
Monday, November 28, 2016
Genesis of the Daleks
To hold in my hand, a capsule that contains such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes, I would do it. That power would set me up among the gods. And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!
Genesis of the Daleks is generally regarded as the best Dalek story ever written by Terry Nation. Some go so far as to proclaim it the best Dalek story but you can usually get a good discussion going regarding The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks. Genesis of the Daleks is actually so highly regarded as a story, that there remains constant debate as to whether Terry Nation actually wrote most of it or whether Robert Holmes filled in Terry Nation's outline.
I'm a little more inclined to think that Terry Nation is responsible for at least 95% of the story. It contains all his usual tropes and unlike some of his other scripts, he was forced to take time and go back to rework it after Barry Letts sent it back to him. I wouldn't be shocked if Robert Holmes did punch up a couple of scenes, especially the scenes between the Doctor and Davros, but I'm still willing to give Terry Nation the credit (or blame depending on your point of view) for the quality of this story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor's transmat beam from Earth is intercepted by the Time Lords who take him, Sarah and Harry to Skaro. There he is tasked with either destroying or altering the development of the Daleks in their nascent state. The Doctor reluctantly agrees and is given a time dial as his only means of returning to the TARDIS once his mission is complete.
Having arrived in the middle of a wasteland between the two principle cities, the Doctor and his companions maneuver through a minefield and arrive outside the Kaled city defenses. They are caught in a Thal attack but a squad of Kaleds kill the attackers and take Harry and the Doctor prisoner. Sarah is knocked unconscious in the attack and assumed dead by the Kaleds.
In the bunker, General Ravon threatens to torture them for information but the Doctor gets the drop on him. He and Harry manage to escape to the surface but are recaptured by a patrol and taken by Security Chief Nyder. He is interested by the advanced technology found in the Doctor's pockets and decides they should see Davros, the chief scientist and leader of the Kaled elites.
Sarah wakes and ventures back into the wasteland when she cannot find a way into the bunker. Sensing that she is being shadowed, she hides in an abandoned bunker. There she observes Davros and his assistant Gharman testing a Mark III travel machine, the standard format of a Dalek. Pleased with the test, Davros and Gharman leave but Sarah is set upon by a pack of Mutos, the genetic casualties of the chemical and radiological warfare between the Kaleds and the Thals. Some want to kill her but another objects. However before they can decide, the entire group is captured by a Thal patrol and taken back to their city.
The Doctor and Harry are taken to see the senior scientist Ronson after being stripped of the time dial bracelet. Ronson is skeptical but after seeing their scans, he becomes convinced that they are alien. His interrogation is interrupted by Davros introducing the Dalek to his science team. Davros permits the Dalek to operate independently and it means to kill the Doctor and Harry but Ronson stops it. Davros is angry at the interference but concedes that Ronson's interrogation would provide useful information. He permits Ronson to continue.
While Ronson's team extracts information from the Doctor, he gathers information from them. After it's over Ronson comes and apologizes. He has seen the Daleks that Davros is breeding and wishes to stop the Kaled people from becoming that. He agrees to help the Doctor escape if the Doctor can inform the Kaled government what Davros has been developing. The Doctor agrees and he takes the Doctor to an airshaft that leads outside the bunker.
In the Thal city, Sarah, the Mutos and a few Kaled prisoners are put to work loading a rocket with explosives. The explosives are unshielded and expose the workers to toxic radiation. Knowing that it will kill them, Sarah and the rest of the prisoners plan an escape. They knock out the guard and climb up the scaffolding to escape through the top of the dome. The guard wakes as they near the top and sounds the alarm. Most of the prisoners are shot down as they try to climb. Sarah slips and nearly falls to her death but hits a landing a few feet down. The Muto Sevrin helps her back to the top but are recaptured before they climb out the top.
The Doctor and Harry emerge from the airshaft in a cave with mutated animals, experimented on by Davros. They manage to get through and up to the city where the Doctor informs the Kaled leaders of what Davros is doing and the long term effects the Daleks will have on the universe. The Kaled leaders decide to investigate for themselves and will order a suspension of Davros' work while they do so. If they find the Doctor's claims correct, they will destroy the work.
Nyder informs Davros of what the leadership is planning and that he suspects Ronson of allowing the prisoners to escape. Davros takes it in and plays along with the Kaled leadership that he will agree to suspend all work, though he asks for 24-hours before shut down. The leadership gives him 12. After they have left, Davros and Nyder take a secret shuttle to the Thal city where Davros claims to be exhausted and willing to sue for peace. He gives the Thals a chemical formula which will destroy the protective dome of the Kaled city, allowing their rocket to penetrate and destroy the city. He and Nyder then return to their bunker.
Harry and the Doctor leave the Kaled city and sneak into the Thal city using underground tunnels. They overhear part of Davros' plan but not the part about the Thals being able to destroy the Kaled city. He and Harry knock out two guards, steal their suits and sneak into the rocket bay. There, they knock out the other guard and free the prisoners, who had been left to be incinerated in the rocket discharge. The Doctor sends Harry, Sarah and Sevrin out to warn the Kaleds of Davros' treachery while he tries to sabotage the rocket. However, the guard comes to and electrifies the metal the Doctor is examining, knocking him out.
The Thals bombard the Kaled dome with the chemicals Davros told them about and upon seeing them work, they launch the rocket. The Doctor tries to stop them but he is restrained by the Thal guards. The rocket lands, destroying the Kaled city. The Doctor despairs, thinking that Harry and Sarah were killed in the attack. The Thal governor declares a day of celebration and an amnesty on all prisoners. The Doctor is released and he plans to head back to the bunker to try and destroy the Daleks, whom he is sure have survived.
In the bunker, Davros and his scientific team watch and feel the city being destroyed above them. Davros declares that he will avenge their people using the Daleks and points out Ronson's treachery. Ronson tries to protest but the summoned Daleks kill him. Davros then orders the Daleks to invade the Thal city and destroy everyone inside.
As the Doctor prepares to leave, he hears the familiar sound of Dalek weaponry. He and a Thal woman named Bettan escape the city. The Doctor tells her to gather as many survivors as she can and then meet him outside the Kaled bunker for an attack. The Doctor reenters the cave to get into the bunker airshafts when he attacked by Mutos. They are driven off by Harry, Sarah and Sevrin. Harry informs the Doctor that they were attacked by the Mutos which delayed them until after the city was attacked. Seeing it destroyed, they hid in the cave, guessing that the Doctor would try to get back into bunker. The Doctor sends Sevrin to Bettan, suggesting that he try and bring as many Mutos willing to fight as possible. He, Harry and Sarah then enter the shafts.
In the bunker, Gharman begins organizing a resistance when Davros orders new Daleks to be altered to remove any conscious they may have. Nyder overhears this and tricks Gharman into thinking he supports him. He lures Gharman into the lower levels where Davros overhears his plans and the fellow conspirators. Nyder knocks Gharman out and they plan to operate on his mind to make him servile once more.
In the lower levels, Nyder overhears the Doctor and his companions crawling through the ducts and arrest them upon entering. Davros interrogates the Doctor where he learns of the future success of the Daleks. He threatens to torture Harry and Sarah and forces the Doctor to reveal all the times the Doctor is aware of the Daleks failure in battle. He records this information and then dismisses Nyder with the prisoners, leaving the Doctor and himself to talk as scientists. The Doctor goads Davros into admitting that that he would destroy all life just to create a superior life form and seizes control of Davros' chair while distracted. He forces Davros to order the destruction of the incubating Daleks but Nyder knocks the Doctor out and Davros countermands the order. Davros orders the Doctor taken to a cell.
Harry and Sarah are placed in the same cell as Gharman and the three plot against Davros. One of the scientists loyal to Gharman knocks out the guard and Harry disguises him as the guard. When Nyder brings the Doctor, Harry surprises him, although Nyder gets away. Free, Gharman and the other scientists work through the lab, convincing most to join their side, locking up those that won't. Harry, Sarah and the Doctor find some explosives and the Doctor sets them up in the incubation room to destroy the Daleks.
Davros, aware that rebellion is fomenting, plots to destroy all of them. He convinces Gharman to assemble the whole team where each will present their case and then let a vote be taken on the course of action. While Gharman assembles the people, Davros sends a signal recalling the Daleks from the Thal city. Gharman informs the Doctor, who had been hesitating about whether the destroy the Daleks and he leaves the explosives in the room.
In Davros' lab as he makes his case, the Doctor, Harry and Sarah recover the items taken from the Doctor, including his sonic screwdriver and the time bracelet. They also observe Nyder slipping out and they too slip out to follow him. Capturing him in the hallway, they force Nyder to unlock the safe in his office where the recording of the Doctor relaying the Dalek failures was kept. The Doctor destroys the tape but Nyder slips out of the room, locking them in. The Doctor isn't worried until he notices that the time bracelet slipped off in the struggle with Nyder.
Outside, the Thal force assembled by Bettan and Sevrin follows the Daleks as they enter the bunker. Bettan sets up explosives to destroy the entrance and seal the occupants in. Sevrin, concerned about the Doctor and his companions, goes in after them, although Bettan warns him that if they are not back by the time she is ready, she will seal them in too.
Sevrin releases the Doctor and his companions from the locked room. Over the monitors, they observe the Daleks surrounding those who continued to defy Davros and execute all of them. With Gharman's revolution over, the Doctor orders Sevrin to take Harry and Sarah out while he blows up the incubator room.
After the execution, Davros observes that Dalek production has commenced despite his orders not yet been given. He orders Nyder to stop it until they are ready. However, he is gunned down by a Dalek when he tries to stop it. They Daleks then turn and execute all the other scientists, despite Davros pleading for their survival.
The Doctor rewires the explosives but cannot set them off due to an approaching Dalek. However, the Dalek runs over the wires and detonates the explosives, killing all Daleks in the incubator room. He then flees down the tunnel just as Bettan and her men are about to close the doors. They pull him through and shut the doors in the face of several pursing Daleks. The Thals then detonate the explosives, sealing the Daleks into the bunker.
In the bunker, realizing the Daleks are turning on him, Davros pleads for pity but the Daleks do not recognize the word. He attempts to hit a button that would destroy the bunker except for that room, but he is gunned down before he can press it. The Daleks then vow to replicate themselves and extricate themselves from the bunker over the next thousand years.
With the Daleks neutralized, Sevrin and the Thals leave to rebuild a society while the Doctor and his companions activate the time bracelet to pull them back to the TARDIS. The Doctor muses that even though they did not fully accomplish their mission, a measure of good will come from their actions.
Analysis
As much as people might deny it, the hands of Terry Nation are all over this story. I think because Terry Nation reused so many of his ideas to the point that they became tropes causes us to forget that he was actually a pretty good writer. Some of his stories are slow but most stories with padding are slow. The first four-parter he wrote (Death to the Daleks) moved pretty well and it was let down mostly by production problems rather that story issues (although elements were heavily recycled again). As for Genesis of the Daleks, while I think Robert Holmes did do a few edits, I think this story is a good example of the quality that Nation was capable of when forced to actually put some extra thought into it.
I really enjoyed this one. The first time I saw this, I was a bit more aware of the padding, refusing to let myself get washed in the story. I found the scenes with Sarah and the rocket to be a bit dull. The second time around, I let go and just let the story come as it was and I found I liked it a lot better. While I was still aware there wasn't much point to the rocket scenes except to give Sarah something to do, I was able to appreciate the tension and the peril that Sarah found herself in. Even as padding, it was enjoyable and it did serve a small element story-wise in terms of giving texture to the nature of the conflict, including the fact that the Thals are not "good guys" as seen in The Daleks, only the other side in a war.
The Doctor was quite good here and I think it goes without saying that his "Do I have the right" speech will probably be shown in the montage at Tom Baker's funeral. He interacts well with everyone but I really enjoyed his banter with Harry in the first couple of episodes. I would also say that there is almost no scene that can top the interaction he has with Davros as they "talk as men of science." That is one of those scenes that you just wish would go on for so much longer you enjoy it so much. There is even some very nice subtle acting being done by Tom Baker as you can see him showing mock strain as he holds Davros' hand away from his control board. I don't know if Michael Wisher was actually pushing against him, but it made it look as though there was a real struggle going on there.
Both companions had good arcs in this story as well. With Sarah removed, Harry fell into the dominant companion role. He didn't have much dialogue, but he played off the Doctor well and they seemed to function as a proper team, stepping in for more physicality when the Doctor was unable to fulfill that role. Absent Sarah, I think Harry could have been remembered as good of a companion as Sarah is.
Sarah was excellent as usual. It was nice to see her not give in to any kind of typical feminine hopelessness and instead focus exclusively on how to escape the rocket silo. Although it didn't work, it was still a valiant effort and well within what we expect of her character. It was also nice to see her acting the voice of conviction when the Doctor hesitated in destroying the Daleks. She correctly points out the evil of the Daleks and how the Doctor would destroy them if they were a virus or a germ. Her interaction is as important as the Doctor's hesitancy as it points out what the stakes are and what each side looks at.
All the supporting cast was good too. It is almost unfortunate that their performances are somewhat lost when compared to Davros and Nyder. Not enough credit is given to Michael Wisher as he fully formed Davros in this story. Although other actors would play him, they all followed in the footsteps of the path he created. What's more, future versions of Davros would focus heavily on the meglomanical tendencies but they minimized his cunning. It is important to note that Davros outsmarted everyone in this story and did effectively win. It is only that the Daleks overrode his control of them in the end that he is seemingly finished at the end of the story.
Nyder is the other great character of this story: the ultimate sycophantic loyalist. Nyder is an obvious parallel to Joseph Goebbels and does an excellent portrayal along those lines. He is arguably more sadistic than Davros who simply uses strength and pain for control. Nyder enjoys it and on more than one occasion, attempts to persuade Davros to release him to purge the ranks of the disloyal. It is this loyalty that gives power to the performance when he actually pauses at Davros' actions of killing the Kaled people and how their whole destiny is simply to become Daleks. Even his death is impressive. Everyone else, including Davros, screamed horribly when killed by a Dalek. Nyder however, does not scream. He has a pained expression but makes no sound as he falls. It is somewhat fitting though that he is shot in the back.
Of all the other secondary characters, I think I enjoyed Gharman the most. Unlike Ronson or the rest of the Kaled leadership, he did not oppose the Dalek project, but saw it as taking advantage of an inevitable mutation that was a side effect of a thousand years of war. His only objection was the creation of the pure Dalek: the one without conscious or morality. In other words, he saw the form as inevitable but wanted to keep the nature that of a Kaled. It is an interesting take and given how the Daleks eventually turned on everyone, Gharman is ultimately proven correct in his concerns. His portrayal even outside of the interesting story arc is also quite enjoyable.
The direction in this story is quite good as well. There were some very well framed scenes. About the only part that was janky for me was towards the end of the first half of Episode One when the story shifted from film to tape. Film gave the story so much extra atmosphere that the story seemed to deflate a bit when they shifted to tape, though they tried to disguise it. I'm not sure what the logistics would have been, but I think the transition would have been a little bit better if the scene in the trench where Harry and the Doctor are captured were also done on film. That could have pushed the tape transition to when the story moved indoors. It's already a harsh change and it would have disguised the shift slightly better in my opinion. But that is a minor criticism in a well produced story.
Although the story did utilize several Terry Nation tropes, the only one that sits out blatantly is Sevrin, the friendly native. Nation would always use some local who would help out for very little reason except that the story said he was to. It is the same here where all other Mutos want to kill Sarah. But Sevrin intervenes and continues to help the Doctor and his companions with little outstanding gain for himself. Perhaps he sees hope in the Doctor's plan that will end the war, despite little evidence given for that as they are there to destroy the Daleks, which would have been mostly unknown to the Mutos. Arguably he stayed loyal to Sarah because of her loyalty to him during their imprisonment by the Thals but it is the one significant Nation trope that is not folded in to the story particularly well and sticks out like a lump in the gravy.
As far as the debate between what Nation did and what Holmes may have added, I can't honestly tell as I find the scenes move together rather fluidly. From experience, I would suggest that the scene between the Doctor and Davros was probably edited by Holmes, although I suspect that most of Davros' speech was written by Nation. I would also suspect that Holmes punched up the "Do I have a right" speech by the Doctor. Again, I would believe that Nation wrote the scene but that Holmes might have tweaked the dialogue so that it flowed either better or more epically. But aside from those two scenes. I'm not sure I could pick out any other point where the hand of Holmes could be overtly detected and I think that speaks well of Terry Nation in this case. This is his story and he should be credited for the work entailed therein.
Overall, this is a very good story. Is it the best Dalek story? No, but then again, it doesn't have many Daleks in it. That works in it's favor as the human drama between the Doctor and Davros drive a large amount of the enjoyment. It could be trimmed a bit and some of the characters curtailed in their involvement, but it is hard not to consider this story one of the best in the entire classic run. I think anyone could sit down and enjoy this at just about any time and I wouldn't hesitate pulling it down to watch again if the mood struck me.
Overall personal score: 5 out of 5
Genesis of the Daleks is generally regarded as the best Dalek story ever written by Terry Nation. Some go so far as to proclaim it the best Dalek story but you can usually get a good discussion going regarding The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks. Genesis of the Daleks is actually so highly regarded as a story, that there remains constant debate as to whether Terry Nation actually wrote most of it or whether Robert Holmes filled in Terry Nation's outline.
I'm a little more inclined to think that Terry Nation is responsible for at least 95% of the story. It contains all his usual tropes and unlike some of his other scripts, he was forced to take time and go back to rework it after Barry Letts sent it back to him. I wouldn't be shocked if Robert Holmes did punch up a couple of scenes, especially the scenes between the Doctor and Davros, but I'm still willing to give Terry Nation the credit (or blame depending on your point of view) for the quality of this story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor's transmat beam from Earth is intercepted by the Time Lords who take him, Sarah and Harry to Skaro. There he is tasked with either destroying or altering the development of the Daleks in their nascent state. The Doctor reluctantly agrees and is given a time dial as his only means of returning to the TARDIS once his mission is complete.
Having arrived in the middle of a wasteland between the two principle cities, the Doctor and his companions maneuver through a minefield and arrive outside the Kaled city defenses. They are caught in a Thal attack but a squad of Kaleds kill the attackers and take Harry and the Doctor prisoner. Sarah is knocked unconscious in the attack and assumed dead by the Kaleds.
In the bunker, General Ravon threatens to torture them for information but the Doctor gets the drop on him. He and Harry manage to escape to the surface but are recaptured by a patrol and taken by Security Chief Nyder. He is interested by the advanced technology found in the Doctor's pockets and decides they should see Davros, the chief scientist and leader of the Kaled elites.
Sarah wakes and ventures back into the wasteland when she cannot find a way into the bunker. Sensing that she is being shadowed, she hides in an abandoned bunker. There she observes Davros and his assistant Gharman testing a Mark III travel machine, the standard format of a Dalek. Pleased with the test, Davros and Gharman leave but Sarah is set upon by a pack of Mutos, the genetic casualties of the chemical and radiological warfare between the Kaleds and the Thals. Some want to kill her but another objects. However before they can decide, the entire group is captured by a Thal patrol and taken back to their city.
The Doctor and Harry are taken to see the senior scientist Ronson after being stripped of the time dial bracelet. Ronson is skeptical but after seeing their scans, he becomes convinced that they are alien. His interrogation is interrupted by Davros introducing the Dalek to his science team. Davros permits the Dalek to operate independently and it means to kill the Doctor and Harry but Ronson stops it. Davros is angry at the interference but concedes that Ronson's interrogation would provide useful information. He permits Ronson to continue.
While Ronson's team extracts information from the Doctor, he gathers information from them. After it's over Ronson comes and apologizes. He has seen the Daleks that Davros is breeding and wishes to stop the Kaled people from becoming that. He agrees to help the Doctor escape if the Doctor can inform the Kaled government what Davros has been developing. The Doctor agrees and he takes the Doctor to an airshaft that leads outside the bunker.
In the Thal city, Sarah, the Mutos and a few Kaled prisoners are put to work loading a rocket with explosives. The explosives are unshielded and expose the workers to toxic radiation. Knowing that it will kill them, Sarah and the rest of the prisoners plan an escape. They knock out the guard and climb up the scaffolding to escape through the top of the dome. The guard wakes as they near the top and sounds the alarm. Most of the prisoners are shot down as they try to climb. Sarah slips and nearly falls to her death but hits a landing a few feet down. The Muto Sevrin helps her back to the top but are recaptured before they climb out the top.
The Doctor and Harry emerge from the airshaft in a cave with mutated animals, experimented on by Davros. They manage to get through and up to the city where the Doctor informs the Kaled leaders of what Davros is doing and the long term effects the Daleks will have on the universe. The Kaled leaders decide to investigate for themselves and will order a suspension of Davros' work while they do so. If they find the Doctor's claims correct, they will destroy the work.
Nyder informs Davros of what the leadership is planning and that he suspects Ronson of allowing the prisoners to escape. Davros takes it in and plays along with the Kaled leadership that he will agree to suspend all work, though he asks for 24-hours before shut down. The leadership gives him 12. After they have left, Davros and Nyder take a secret shuttle to the Thal city where Davros claims to be exhausted and willing to sue for peace. He gives the Thals a chemical formula which will destroy the protective dome of the Kaled city, allowing their rocket to penetrate and destroy the city. He and Nyder then return to their bunker.
Harry and the Doctor leave the Kaled city and sneak into the Thal city using underground tunnels. They overhear part of Davros' plan but not the part about the Thals being able to destroy the Kaled city. He and Harry knock out two guards, steal their suits and sneak into the rocket bay. There, they knock out the other guard and free the prisoners, who had been left to be incinerated in the rocket discharge. The Doctor sends Harry, Sarah and Sevrin out to warn the Kaleds of Davros' treachery while he tries to sabotage the rocket. However, the guard comes to and electrifies the metal the Doctor is examining, knocking him out.
The Thals bombard the Kaled dome with the chemicals Davros told them about and upon seeing them work, they launch the rocket. The Doctor tries to stop them but he is restrained by the Thal guards. The rocket lands, destroying the Kaled city. The Doctor despairs, thinking that Harry and Sarah were killed in the attack. The Thal governor declares a day of celebration and an amnesty on all prisoners. The Doctor is released and he plans to head back to the bunker to try and destroy the Daleks, whom he is sure have survived.
In the bunker, Davros and his scientific team watch and feel the city being destroyed above them. Davros declares that he will avenge their people using the Daleks and points out Ronson's treachery. Ronson tries to protest but the summoned Daleks kill him. Davros then orders the Daleks to invade the Thal city and destroy everyone inside.
As the Doctor prepares to leave, he hears the familiar sound of Dalek weaponry. He and a Thal woman named Bettan escape the city. The Doctor tells her to gather as many survivors as she can and then meet him outside the Kaled bunker for an attack. The Doctor reenters the cave to get into the bunker airshafts when he attacked by Mutos. They are driven off by Harry, Sarah and Sevrin. Harry informs the Doctor that they were attacked by the Mutos which delayed them until after the city was attacked. Seeing it destroyed, they hid in the cave, guessing that the Doctor would try to get back into bunker. The Doctor sends Sevrin to Bettan, suggesting that he try and bring as many Mutos willing to fight as possible. He, Harry and Sarah then enter the shafts.
In the bunker, Gharman begins organizing a resistance when Davros orders new Daleks to be altered to remove any conscious they may have. Nyder overhears this and tricks Gharman into thinking he supports him. He lures Gharman into the lower levels where Davros overhears his plans and the fellow conspirators. Nyder knocks Gharman out and they plan to operate on his mind to make him servile once more.
In the lower levels, Nyder overhears the Doctor and his companions crawling through the ducts and arrest them upon entering. Davros interrogates the Doctor where he learns of the future success of the Daleks. He threatens to torture Harry and Sarah and forces the Doctor to reveal all the times the Doctor is aware of the Daleks failure in battle. He records this information and then dismisses Nyder with the prisoners, leaving the Doctor and himself to talk as scientists. The Doctor goads Davros into admitting that that he would destroy all life just to create a superior life form and seizes control of Davros' chair while distracted. He forces Davros to order the destruction of the incubating Daleks but Nyder knocks the Doctor out and Davros countermands the order. Davros orders the Doctor taken to a cell.
Harry and Sarah are placed in the same cell as Gharman and the three plot against Davros. One of the scientists loyal to Gharman knocks out the guard and Harry disguises him as the guard. When Nyder brings the Doctor, Harry surprises him, although Nyder gets away. Free, Gharman and the other scientists work through the lab, convincing most to join their side, locking up those that won't. Harry, Sarah and the Doctor find some explosives and the Doctor sets them up in the incubation room to destroy the Daleks.
Davros, aware that rebellion is fomenting, plots to destroy all of them. He convinces Gharman to assemble the whole team where each will present their case and then let a vote be taken on the course of action. While Gharman assembles the people, Davros sends a signal recalling the Daleks from the Thal city. Gharman informs the Doctor, who had been hesitating about whether the destroy the Daleks and he leaves the explosives in the room.
In Davros' lab as he makes his case, the Doctor, Harry and Sarah recover the items taken from the Doctor, including his sonic screwdriver and the time bracelet. They also observe Nyder slipping out and they too slip out to follow him. Capturing him in the hallway, they force Nyder to unlock the safe in his office where the recording of the Doctor relaying the Dalek failures was kept. The Doctor destroys the tape but Nyder slips out of the room, locking them in. The Doctor isn't worried until he notices that the time bracelet slipped off in the struggle with Nyder.
Outside, the Thal force assembled by Bettan and Sevrin follows the Daleks as they enter the bunker. Bettan sets up explosives to destroy the entrance and seal the occupants in. Sevrin, concerned about the Doctor and his companions, goes in after them, although Bettan warns him that if they are not back by the time she is ready, she will seal them in too.
Sevrin releases the Doctor and his companions from the locked room. Over the monitors, they observe the Daleks surrounding those who continued to defy Davros and execute all of them. With Gharman's revolution over, the Doctor orders Sevrin to take Harry and Sarah out while he blows up the incubator room.
After the execution, Davros observes that Dalek production has commenced despite his orders not yet been given. He orders Nyder to stop it until they are ready. However, he is gunned down by a Dalek when he tries to stop it. They Daleks then turn and execute all the other scientists, despite Davros pleading for their survival.
The Doctor rewires the explosives but cannot set them off due to an approaching Dalek. However, the Dalek runs over the wires and detonates the explosives, killing all Daleks in the incubator room. He then flees down the tunnel just as Bettan and her men are about to close the doors. They pull him through and shut the doors in the face of several pursing Daleks. The Thals then detonate the explosives, sealing the Daleks into the bunker.
In the bunker, realizing the Daleks are turning on him, Davros pleads for pity but the Daleks do not recognize the word. He attempts to hit a button that would destroy the bunker except for that room, but he is gunned down before he can press it. The Daleks then vow to replicate themselves and extricate themselves from the bunker over the next thousand years.
With the Daleks neutralized, Sevrin and the Thals leave to rebuild a society while the Doctor and his companions activate the time bracelet to pull them back to the TARDIS. The Doctor muses that even though they did not fully accomplish their mission, a measure of good will come from their actions.
Analysis
As much as people might deny it, the hands of Terry Nation are all over this story. I think because Terry Nation reused so many of his ideas to the point that they became tropes causes us to forget that he was actually a pretty good writer. Some of his stories are slow but most stories with padding are slow. The first four-parter he wrote (Death to the Daleks) moved pretty well and it was let down mostly by production problems rather that story issues (although elements were heavily recycled again). As for Genesis of the Daleks, while I think Robert Holmes did do a few edits, I think this story is a good example of the quality that Nation was capable of when forced to actually put some extra thought into it.
I really enjoyed this one. The first time I saw this, I was a bit more aware of the padding, refusing to let myself get washed in the story. I found the scenes with Sarah and the rocket to be a bit dull. The second time around, I let go and just let the story come as it was and I found I liked it a lot better. While I was still aware there wasn't much point to the rocket scenes except to give Sarah something to do, I was able to appreciate the tension and the peril that Sarah found herself in. Even as padding, it was enjoyable and it did serve a small element story-wise in terms of giving texture to the nature of the conflict, including the fact that the Thals are not "good guys" as seen in The Daleks, only the other side in a war.
The Doctor was quite good here and I think it goes without saying that his "Do I have the right" speech will probably be shown in the montage at Tom Baker's funeral. He interacts well with everyone but I really enjoyed his banter with Harry in the first couple of episodes. I would also say that there is almost no scene that can top the interaction he has with Davros as they "talk as men of science." That is one of those scenes that you just wish would go on for so much longer you enjoy it so much. There is even some very nice subtle acting being done by Tom Baker as you can see him showing mock strain as he holds Davros' hand away from his control board. I don't know if Michael Wisher was actually pushing against him, but it made it look as though there was a real struggle going on there.
Both companions had good arcs in this story as well. With Sarah removed, Harry fell into the dominant companion role. He didn't have much dialogue, but he played off the Doctor well and they seemed to function as a proper team, stepping in for more physicality when the Doctor was unable to fulfill that role. Absent Sarah, I think Harry could have been remembered as good of a companion as Sarah is.
Sarah was excellent as usual. It was nice to see her not give in to any kind of typical feminine hopelessness and instead focus exclusively on how to escape the rocket silo. Although it didn't work, it was still a valiant effort and well within what we expect of her character. It was also nice to see her acting the voice of conviction when the Doctor hesitated in destroying the Daleks. She correctly points out the evil of the Daleks and how the Doctor would destroy them if they were a virus or a germ. Her interaction is as important as the Doctor's hesitancy as it points out what the stakes are and what each side looks at.
All the supporting cast was good too. It is almost unfortunate that their performances are somewhat lost when compared to Davros and Nyder. Not enough credit is given to Michael Wisher as he fully formed Davros in this story. Although other actors would play him, they all followed in the footsteps of the path he created. What's more, future versions of Davros would focus heavily on the meglomanical tendencies but they minimized his cunning. It is important to note that Davros outsmarted everyone in this story and did effectively win. It is only that the Daleks overrode his control of them in the end that he is seemingly finished at the end of the story.
Nyder is the other great character of this story: the ultimate sycophantic loyalist. Nyder is an obvious parallel to Joseph Goebbels and does an excellent portrayal along those lines. He is arguably more sadistic than Davros who simply uses strength and pain for control. Nyder enjoys it and on more than one occasion, attempts to persuade Davros to release him to purge the ranks of the disloyal. It is this loyalty that gives power to the performance when he actually pauses at Davros' actions of killing the Kaled people and how their whole destiny is simply to become Daleks. Even his death is impressive. Everyone else, including Davros, screamed horribly when killed by a Dalek. Nyder however, does not scream. He has a pained expression but makes no sound as he falls. It is somewhat fitting though that he is shot in the back.
Of all the other secondary characters, I think I enjoyed Gharman the most. Unlike Ronson or the rest of the Kaled leadership, he did not oppose the Dalek project, but saw it as taking advantage of an inevitable mutation that was a side effect of a thousand years of war. His only objection was the creation of the pure Dalek: the one without conscious or morality. In other words, he saw the form as inevitable but wanted to keep the nature that of a Kaled. It is an interesting take and given how the Daleks eventually turned on everyone, Gharman is ultimately proven correct in his concerns. His portrayal even outside of the interesting story arc is also quite enjoyable.
The direction in this story is quite good as well. There were some very well framed scenes. About the only part that was janky for me was towards the end of the first half of Episode One when the story shifted from film to tape. Film gave the story so much extra atmosphere that the story seemed to deflate a bit when they shifted to tape, though they tried to disguise it. I'm not sure what the logistics would have been, but I think the transition would have been a little bit better if the scene in the trench where Harry and the Doctor are captured were also done on film. That could have pushed the tape transition to when the story moved indoors. It's already a harsh change and it would have disguised the shift slightly better in my opinion. But that is a minor criticism in a well produced story.
Although the story did utilize several Terry Nation tropes, the only one that sits out blatantly is Sevrin, the friendly native. Nation would always use some local who would help out for very little reason except that the story said he was to. It is the same here where all other Mutos want to kill Sarah. But Sevrin intervenes and continues to help the Doctor and his companions with little outstanding gain for himself. Perhaps he sees hope in the Doctor's plan that will end the war, despite little evidence given for that as they are there to destroy the Daleks, which would have been mostly unknown to the Mutos. Arguably he stayed loyal to Sarah because of her loyalty to him during their imprisonment by the Thals but it is the one significant Nation trope that is not folded in to the story particularly well and sticks out like a lump in the gravy.
As far as the debate between what Nation did and what Holmes may have added, I can't honestly tell as I find the scenes move together rather fluidly. From experience, I would suggest that the scene between the Doctor and Davros was probably edited by Holmes, although I suspect that most of Davros' speech was written by Nation. I would also suspect that Holmes punched up the "Do I have a right" speech by the Doctor. Again, I would believe that Nation wrote the scene but that Holmes might have tweaked the dialogue so that it flowed either better or more epically. But aside from those two scenes. I'm not sure I could pick out any other point where the hand of Holmes could be overtly detected and I think that speaks well of Terry Nation in this case. This is his story and he should be credited for the work entailed therein.
Overall, this is a very good story. Is it the best Dalek story? No, but then again, it doesn't have many Daleks in it. That works in it's favor as the human drama between the Doctor and Davros drive a large amount of the enjoyment. It could be trimmed a bit and some of the characters curtailed in their involvement, but it is hard not to consider this story one of the best in the entire classic run. I think anyone could sit down and enjoy this at just about any time and I wouldn't hesitate pulling it down to watch again if the mood struck me.
Overall personal score: 5 out of 5
Friday, November 18, 2016
The Happiness Patrol
Happiness shall prevail.
The Happiness Patrol is a story that seems to rate in the lower middle of most fan's lists. I don't know that I've ever run into anyone that raved over it but I have heard of several fans that despise it, mostly due to the Kandy Man. I've been of a mixed mind on this one as it is hard to overlook a prejudice that significant, but I found that I've had a better appreciation of some of the Seventh Doctor stories than general fandom so I'm trying to keep an open mind.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Ace arrive on the Earth colony of Terra Alpha, which the Doctor had been meaning to look into for a while due to troubling rumors. He and Ace walk around a bit and run into a census taker named Trevor Sigma. When they come back to the TARDIS they find a squad from the Happiness Patrol painting it pink, having just returned from the execution of a killjoy (someone not happy). The Doctor and Ace manage to get themselves arrested and taken to a waiting area.
The colony is run by a woman named Helen A who works with a sadistic henchman called the Kandy Man. Helen A sends out a message of happiness to the citizens before having a man executed by being smothered to death in tube of fondant sent up from the Kandy Man. Her address is watched by another man in the holding area who used to be a joke writer for Helen A. However, he began investigating disappearances in the colony and was sent away. As he relates this to the Doctor and Ace, Helen A sends a charge through the machine he is using and electrocutes him.
The Doctor and Ace disable a booby trap on a patrol cart and leave the waiting area. They soon split up with Ace surrendering to the Happiness Patrol on the pretext of wanting to join them. She is taken back to the Patrol HQ where she befriends a member of the patrol named Susan Q, who is becoming disillusioned with life in the colony and on the patrol.
The Doctor meets a tourist named Earl Sigma who has been trapped on the colony and now working against the regime. To avoid a patrol, they dash into a building only to find that it is the Kandy Man's kitchen where he prepares to use them to experiment on. He places them in chairs for testing his sweets on but the Doctor tricks him into knocking over a bottle of lemonade, which causes his feet to stick to the floor (being made of confectionary). The Doctor and Earl flee into the underground tunnels.
Ace and Susan Q are taken from the Patrol HQ to another waiting area where they are sentenced to execution. This movement is observed by creatures living in the tunnels. The Doctor and Earl run into these creatures, who are the natives of the planet. The Doctor recognizes slogans they picked up from overhearing Ace and they recognize him as a friend.
The natives escort the Doctor through the sewers and let him and Earl out near where Trevor Sigma is conducting business. Earl leaves and the Doctor overrides Trevor and they head off to see Helen A. Helen A greets Trevor warmly but the Doctor takes command and warns Helen A to change how things are done on the colony. She dismisses him and the Doctor walks out.
After meeting the Doctor, one of the natives conducts a raid on the holding area and rescues Ace. Susan Q had already been taken away for execution. Upon learning of the escape, Helen A sends her pet Stigorax, Fifi, into the sewers after them. Ace blows up the tunnel with a can of Nitro-9, before slipping down another shaft.
The Doctor heads back towards the Kandy Kitchen, stopping a pair of snipers who had been firing on a crowd of striking workers on his way. He finds the Kandy Man still suck to the floor where he left him. He offers to free the Kandy Man if he diverts the flow of fondant, preventing another execution. The Kandy Man agrees and changes the flow of the fondant just before Susan Q is to be killed. The change in pipe flow also causes Ace and her native guide to be dropped into the execution area where she is rearrested.
Trevor Sigma informs Helen A that per galactic law, Susan Q and Ace cannot be executed by the same method if it fails once. She then orders the two women to be taken to the forum for public execution.
Knowing that he would attack him again, the Doctor resticks the Kandy Man to the floor and heads off to find Ace. He learns from posters being put up of Ace's impending execution in the forum. The Doctor signals Earl Sigma who joins up with striking factory workers to head towards the forum. As the Happiness Patrol approaches with Ace, the Doctor breaks into wild laughter. Earl and the strikers approach, also laughing and acting overly silly. With all acting in apparently happiness, the patrol is confused on what to do. The Doctor, Ace, Susan Q and Earl all slip away in a vehicle while the squad leader, Pricilla P turns and arrests her lieutenant Daisy K for her confusion.
Helen A sends Fifi, who survived Ace's Nitro-9 attack, back into the pipes to hunt down the Doctor and his companions. The natives hear Fifi in the pipes and warn the Doctor. The Doctor stops under a factor that has developed a leak and has developed large stalactites of hardened sugar. He has Earl play resonance notes on his harmonica and then runs. The stalactites break off and crush Fifi as she chases them.
Earl and Susan separate from the Doctor and Ace and assist the strikers into becoming full rioters. They overwhelm the Happiness Patrol squads and begin destroying the factories. Helen A recalls Daisy K to the palace, ordering Pricilla P to wait in the holding area. However, Pricilla P is overrun by the rioters and bound before she can regroup the patrol.
The Doctor and Ace head back to the Kandy Kitchen where they overheat the oven and drive the Kandy Man away. He flees into the pipes to escape. The natives enter and take control of the pipes, redirecting fondant through the pipes, destroying the Kandy Man. Seeing his work destroyed, Gilbert M flees the planet with Helen A's husband Joseph C in her private shuttle, leaving her stranded on the planet.
As more factories are destroyed, Helen A flees the palace, leaving Daisy K as the only defense. She is overrun and disarmed by Susan Q. She and Earl Sigma shut down all remaining defenses and controls. The Doctor meanwhile meets Helen A in the streets, confronting her on her desire for happiness. She resists until she sees Fifi's dead body lying near by, brought up by the Doctor. Seeing her beloved pet dead breaks her and Helen A collapses around her pet in a fit of sobbing.
The surviving members of the Happiness Patrol are placed in work gangs and ordered to help clean up the city. The people take control with Earl Sigma noting that he plans to stay and help supervise. The Doctor and Ace then depart in the TARDIS, which has been repainted its original blue.
Analysis
I either read or heard somewhere that there was discussion of possibly filming this story in black and white to add to its film-noir feel. I don't think that would have worked as the washed out color fits the mood of the story better, but this is clearly Doctor Who does film-noir. I liked this one much more than I was originally expecting. It does have flaws and fairly significant ones at that, but it does it's job well and most of those flaws can be overlooked to enjoy the story as a whole.
I really enjoyed the Seventh Doctor. In fact, if the majority of the Seventh Doctor stories had had him like this, I think he would have taken the position as my favorite Doctor from the Second Doctor. He was not the all-knowing Doctor, but came in suspicious. Once he got the bead, he developed a plan and executed it with nearly flawless precision. Some of that plan even involved facing down and taking the measure of the enemy directly.
I think my favorite moment in the entire story was a throw away scene where the Doctor stops two male members of the patrol who are sniping factory strikers. He walks up directly behind the snipers and stares the gunner straight down. He forces the man to look him in the face and dares him to shoot him. It is a challenge to the will of the shooter and reminded me of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne literally wills Captain Hadley not to throw him to his death. It was a very well played scene and showed a strength in the Doctor that is sometimes lacking in other stories.
I enjoyed Ace but she was very underused in this story. When she was with the Doctor, she was a tag team partner at best. When she was away from him, she was being held by the Happiness Patrol for most of the time and didn't do much there either. Her interaction with Susan Q was nice but it was rushed in development and still didn't have a major impact on the overall flow of the story. Nice but ultimately forgettable.
I enjoyed nearly all of the secondary characters. Helen A in particular was quite good in that over the top mad way. Drawing on other media, she reminded me of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I know she was supposed to be a take on Margaret Thatcher but, not being British, I can't speak to that. I also enjoyed the dry and slightly droll performances of her husband and the Kandy Man's creator. The two men were so dry in their delivery that it stood out as quite funny to me.
I also surprisingly enjoyed the fact that Helen A was not simply gunned down as you might expect in a revolution story, such as The Sunmakers. Instead, being forced to confront the shattering of what she viewed as perfection seemed like a more appropriate punishment. In the end she is not just killed off, but instead forced to deal with the reality of pain and suffering and how they complete us as people. It makes her even more pathetic to see her broken and weeping over the carcass of Fifi than it would be to see her own carcass lying in the street.
Going back to the film noir aspect, I enjoyed how this story was shot. I think it would have looked even better on film, but they did a decent job with what they had. There was a grit in the scenes and the lighting was very muted which gave everyone a washed out look, adding to the disassociation between the requirement of happiness and the reality of the situation. There was also a very good use of shadow to hide various flaws that existed in the scenery and in Fifi herself. I also happened to see this off an old VHS recording and the graininess that exists in that medium actually helped the story in my opinion. If I were to rewatch it in a DVD or Blue Ray, I think the clarity of the picture might actually detract from the story due to too much contrast being introduced.
With all of that good stuff there were some flaws, none of which were enough to ruin the story, but they could have made it better. Going off the previous point of the sets, lighting and direction, all of that couldn't fully hide the limitations of the budget. There is a lot of cast and a lot of set and it is obvious that they had to cut corners here and there. The vehicles are essentially go-karts and the flow of fondant never looked impressive enough to actually kill someone. There were a couple of other points where it was just difficult to contain the idea that this was confined on a soundstage. I think if this story had been shot on location in an abandoned warehouse of factory and dressed up from there, I think it would have covered up some of the cheapness that seeped through.
The second flaw that stood out to me was the pacing. A true film-noir needs time to breathe and this story didn't breathe quite enough. So much story was being told that it often a jump from scene to scene without any real clarity in how they got there. It's not as bad as it is in a few other Seventh Doctor stories (such as Ghost Light), but there is still a rushed feeling that shouldn't be there in a noir piece. I don't think expanding it to four episodes would have been the right move as it would have introduced too much padding, but if a scene or two were trimmed or reedited, I think it would have flowed better.
Probably the best scenes for editing (or even outright excisement) would be the Kandy Man scenes and that is my third and largest flaw in the story. The Kandy Man sticks out in this story as so out of place. While everyone else is human and there is a real level of grit, you introduce this sadistic creature that serves almost no point. He supplies the fondant for the executions but other than that, he does nothing in the story. What's more, he appears to be living confectionary and that just seems so out of left field in what is otherwise not much of a science fiction story.
I could forgive the wackiness of the Kandy Man if he had an actual point. But all of his scenes are just the guardian of the Kandy Kitchen, supplying the fuel of execution. This could have easily just been done by Gilbert M himself and those scenes sharply reduced in length, allowing the rest of the story some breathing room. Imagine for example that in Episode Two, instead of the Doctor freeing the Kandy Man to make him divert the fondant in Susan Q's execution, the Doctor instead sneaks behind Gilbert M and forces him to divert the flow by threatening to expose his own lack of happiness. Not only would it have trimmed the scene and given it a more realistic tone, but it would have given extra motivation for Gilbert's flight at the end of the story. I don't hate the Kandy Man the way some fans seem to, but it's just weirdness for weirdness sake and a character that adds nothing to the story at the expense of other more significant elements.
Overall, I enjoyed this story. It lost me in a couple of places, but reeled me back in with a good noir take. It has it's problems, but much like Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the quality of the performances and the atmosphere salvage the overall story, allowing the good to outweigh the bad. I would like to watch this one again, preferably with a higher quality copy to see if that clarity hurts or helps the overall story.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
The Happiness Patrol is a story that seems to rate in the lower middle of most fan's lists. I don't know that I've ever run into anyone that raved over it but I have heard of several fans that despise it, mostly due to the Kandy Man. I've been of a mixed mind on this one as it is hard to overlook a prejudice that significant, but I found that I've had a better appreciation of some of the Seventh Doctor stories than general fandom so I'm trying to keep an open mind.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Ace arrive on the Earth colony of Terra Alpha, which the Doctor had been meaning to look into for a while due to troubling rumors. He and Ace walk around a bit and run into a census taker named Trevor Sigma. When they come back to the TARDIS they find a squad from the Happiness Patrol painting it pink, having just returned from the execution of a killjoy (someone not happy). The Doctor and Ace manage to get themselves arrested and taken to a waiting area.
The colony is run by a woman named Helen A who works with a sadistic henchman called the Kandy Man. Helen A sends out a message of happiness to the citizens before having a man executed by being smothered to death in tube of fondant sent up from the Kandy Man. Her address is watched by another man in the holding area who used to be a joke writer for Helen A. However, he began investigating disappearances in the colony and was sent away. As he relates this to the Doctor and Ace, Helen A sends a charge through the machine he is using and electrocutes him.
The Doctor and Ace disable a booby trap on a patrol cart and leave the waiting area. They soon split up with Ace surrendering to the Happiness Patrol on the pretext of wanting to join them. She is taken back to the Patrol HQ where she befriends a member of the patrol named Susan Q, who is becoming disillusioned with life in the colony and on the patrol.
The Doctor meets a tourist named Earl Sigma who has been trapped on the colony and now working against the regime. To avoid a patrol, they dash into a building only to find that it is the Kandy Man's kitchen where he prepares to use them to experiment on. He places them in chairs for testing his sweets on but the Doctor tricks him into knocking over a bottle of lemonade, which causes his feet to stick to the floor (being made of confectionary). The Doctor and Earl flee into the underground tunnels.
Ace and Susan Q are taken from the Patrol HQ to another waiting area where they are sentenced to execution. This movement is observed by creatures living in the tunnels. The Doctor and Earl run into these creatures, who are the natives of the planet. The Doctor recognizes slogans they picked up from overhearing Ace and they recognize him as a friend.
The natives escort the Doctor through the sewers and let him and Earl out near where Trevor Sigma is conducting business. Earl leaves and the Doctor overrides Trevor and they head off to see Helen A. Helen A greets Trevor warmly but the Doctor takes command and warns Helen A to change how things are done on the colony. She dismisses him and the Doctor walks out.
After meeting the Doctor, one of the natives conducts a raid on the holding area and rescues Ace. Susan Q had already been taken away for execution. Upon learning of the escape, Helen A sends her pet Stigorax, Fifi, into the sewers after them. Ace blows up the tunnel with a can of Nitro-9, before slipping down another shaft.
The Doctor heads back towards the Kandy Kitchen, stopping a pair of snipers who had been firing on a crowd of striking workers on his way. He finds the Kandy Man still suck to the floor where he left him. He offers to free the Kandy Man if he diverts the flow of fondant, preventing another execution. The Kandy Man agrees and changes the flow of the fondant just before Susan Q is to be killed. The change in pipe flow also causes Ace and her native guide to be dropped into the execution area where she is rearrested.
Trevor Sigma informs Helen A that per galactic law, Susan Q and Ace cannot be executed by the same method if it fails once. She then orders the two women to be taken to the forum for public execution.
Knowing that he would attack him again, the Doctor resticks the Kandy Man to the floor and heads off to find Ace. He learns from posters being put up of Ace's impending execution in the forum. The Doctor signals Earl Sigma who joins up with striking factory workers to head towards the forum. As the Happiness Patrol approaches with Ace, the Doctor breaks into wild laughter. Earl and the strikers approach, also laughing and acting overly silly. With all acting in apparently happiness, the patrol is confused on what to do. The Doctor, Ace, Susan Q and Earl all slip away in a vehicle while the squad leader, Pricilla P turns and arrests her lieutenant Daisy K for her confusion.
Helen A sends Fifi, who survived Ace's Nitro-9 attack, back into the pipes to hunt down the Doctor and his companions. The natives hear Fifi in the pipes and warn the Doctor. The Doctor stops under a factor that has developed a leak and has developed large stalactites of hardened sugar. He has Earl play resonance notes on his harmonica and then runs. The stalactites break off and crush Fifi as she chases them.
Earl and Susan separate from the Doctor and Ace and assist the strikers into becoming full rioters. They overwhelm the Happiness Patrol squads and begin destroying the factories. Helen A recalls Daisy K to the palace, ordering Pricilla P to wait in the holding area. However, Pricilla P is overrun by the rioters and bound before she can regroup the patrol.
The Doctor and Ace head back to the Kandy Kitchen where they overheat the oven and drive the Kandy Man away. He flees into the pipes to escape. The natives enter and take control of the pipes, redirecting fondant through the pipes, destroying the Kandy Man. Seeing his work destroyed, Gilbert M flees the planet with Helen A's husband Joseph C in her private shuttle, leaving her stranded on the planet.
As more factories are destroyed, Helen A flees the palace, leaving Daisy K as the only defense. She is overrun and disarmed by Susan Q. She and Earl Sigma shut down all remaining defenses and controls. The Doctor meanwhile meets Helen A in the streets, confronting her on her desire for happiness. She resists until she sees Fifi's dead body lying near by, brought up by the Doctor. Seeing her beloved pet dead breaks her and Helen A collapses around her pet in a fit of sobbing.
The surviving members of the Happiness Patrol are placed in work gangs and ordered to help clean up the city. The people take control with Earl Sigma noting that he plans to stay and help supervise. The Doctor and Ace then depart in the TARDIS, which has been repainted its original blue.
Analysis
I either read or heard somewhere that there was discussion of possibly filming this story in black and white to add to its film-noir feel. I don't think that would have worked as the washed out color fits the mood of the story better, but this is clearly Doctor Who does film-noir. I liked this one much more than I was originally expecting. It does have flaws and fairly significant ones at that, but it does it's job well and most of those flaws can be overlooked to enjoy the story as a whole.
I really enjoyed the Seventh Doctor. In fact, if the majority of the Seventh Doctor stories had had him like this, I think he would have taken the position as my favorite Doctor from the Second Doctor. He was not the all-knowing Doctor, but came in suspicious. Once he got the bead, he developed a plan and executed it with nearly flawless precision. Some of that plan even involved facing down and taking the measure of the enemy directly.
I think my favorite moment in the entire story was a throw away scene where the Doctor stops two male members of the patrol who are sniping factory strikers. He walks up directly behind the snipers and stares the gunner straight down. He forces the man to look him in the face and dares him to shoot him. It is a challenge to the will of the shooter and reminded me of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne literally wills Captain Hadley not to throw him to his death. It was a very well played scene and showed a strength in the Doctor that is sometimes lacking in other stories.
I enjoyed Ace but she was very underused in this story. When she was with the Doctor, she was a tag team partner at best. When she was away from him, she was being held by the Happiness Patrol for most of the time and didn't do much there either. Her interaction with Susan Q was nice but it was rushed in development and still didn't have a major impact on the overall flow of the story. Nice but ultimately forgettable.
I enjoyed nearly all of the secondary characters. Helen A in particular was quite good in that over the top mad way. Drawing on other media, she reminded me of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I know she was supposed to be a take on Margaret Thatcher but, not being British, I can't speak to that. I also enjoyed the dry and slightly droll performances of her husband and the Kandy Man's creator. The two men were so dry in their delivery that it stood out as quite funny to me.
I also surprisingly enjoyed the fact that Helen A was not simply gunned down as you might expect in a revolution story, such as The Sunmakers. Instead, being forced to confront the shattering of what she viewed as perfection seemed like a more appropriate punishment. In the end she is not just killed off, but instead forced to deal with the reality of pain and suffering and how they complete us as people. It makes her even more pathetic to see her broken and weeping over the carcass of Fifi than it would be to see her own carcass lying in the street.
Going back to the film noir aspect, I enjoyed how this story was shot. I think it would have looked even better on film, but they did a decent job with what they had. There was a grit in the scenes and the lighting was very muted which gave everyone a washed out look, adding to the disassociation between the requirement of happiness and the reality of the situation. There was also a very good use of shadow to hide various flaws that existed in the scenery and in Fifi herself. I also happened to see this off an old VHS recording and the graininess that exists in that medium actually helped the story in my opinion. If I were to rewatch it in a DVD or Blue Ray, I think the clarity of the picture might actually detract from the story due to too much contrast being introduced.
With all of that good stuff there were some flaws, none of which were enough to ruin the story, but they could have made it better. Going off the previous point of the sets, lighting and direction, all of that couldn't fully hide the limitations of the budget. There is a lot of cast and a lot of set and it is obvious that they had to cut corners here and there. The vehicles are essentially go-karts and the flow of fondant never looked impressive enough to actually kill someone. There were a couple of other points where it was just difficult to contain the idea that this was confined on a soundstage. I think if this story had been shot on location in an abandoned warehouse of factory and dressed up from there, I think it would have covered up some of the cheapness that seeped through.
The second flaw that stood out to me was the pacing. A true film-noir needs time to breathe and this story didn't breathe quite enough. So much story was being told that it often a jump from scene to scene without any real clarity in how they got there. It's not as bad as it is in a few other Seventh Doctor stories (such as Ghost Light), but there is still a rushed feeling that shouldn't be there in a noir piece. I don't think expanding it to four episodes would have been the right move as it would have introduced too much padding, but if a scene or two were trimmed or reedited, I think it would have flowed better.
Probably the best scenes for editing (or even outright excisement) would be the Kandy Man scenes and that is my third and largest flaw in the story. The Kandy Man sticks out in this story as so out of place. While everyone else is human and there is a real level of grit, you introduce this sadistic creature that serves almost no point. He supplies the fondant for the executions but other than that, he does nothing in the story. What's more, he appears to be living confectionary and that just seems so out of left field in what is otherwise not much of a science fiction story.
I could forgive the wackiness of the Kandy Man if he had an actual point. But all of his scenes are just the guardian of the Kandy Kitchen, supplying the fuel of execution. This could have easily just been done by Gilbert M himself and those scenes sharply reduced in length, allowing the rest of the story some breathing room. Imagine for example that in Episode Two, instead of the Doctor freeing the Kandy Man to make him divert the fondant in Susan Q's execution, the Doctor instead sneaks behind Gilbert M and forces him to divert the flow by threatening to expose his own lack of happiness. Not only would it have trimmed the scene and given it a more realistic tone, but it would have given extra motivation for Gilbert's flight at the end of the story. I don't hate the Kandy Man the way some fans seem to, but it's just weirdness for weirdness sake and a character that adds nothing to the story at the expense of other more significant elements.
Overall, I enjoyed this story. It lost me in a couple of places, but reeled me back in with a good noir take. It has it's problems, but much like Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the quality of the performances and the atmosphere salvage the overall story, allowing the good to outweigh the bad. I would like to watch this one again, preferably with a higher quality copy to see if that clarity hurts or helps the overall story.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Ninth Doctor Summary
I was curious to see whether I would finish the Ninth Doctor era first or if the Sixth Doctor would win out. In the end, it makes more sense that it would be the Ninth Doctor given that he does have less time on screen than any other Doctor save the Eighth and his screen duration is too limited to give a full summary to.
Overall, I'd say that I liked the Ninth Doctor. He can be a bit too jokey and over the top at times, but his quiet moments are quite good. I would have very much liked to see what he could have done with a deeper and darker sense creeping in as came in with the Tenth Doctor. He had a good chemistry with Rose and I thought they played off each other fairly well. He was caustic in a way that would have made the Sixth Doctor proud but he never got into the full bickering with Rose. She held her own much better than Peri ever did.
It is easy to see how and why he was overshadowed, given the giants that the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors became. Having left on bad terms also didn't help as attempts to attract attention to the Ninth Doctor era were left without the Ninth Doctor himself. I would rate him more in the middle of my list of Doctors, enjoyable and entertaining, but without a central driving reason to push him above any of the others.
Highest Rated Story: The Unquiet Dead - 4.5
Lowest Rated Story: World War Three - 1.5
Average overall rating: 3.25
Rose
The End of the World
The Unquiet Dead
Aliens of London/World War Three
Dalek
The Long Game
Father's Day
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Boom Town
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
Overall, I'd say that I liked the Ninth Doctor. He can be a bit too jokey and over the top at times, but his quiet moments are quite good. I would have very much liked to see what he could have done with a deeper and darker sense creeping in as came in with the Tenth Doctor. He had a good chemistry with Rose and I thought they played off each other fairly well. He was caustic in a way that would have made the Sixth Doctor proud but he never got into the full bickering with Rose. She held her own much better than Peri ever did.
It is easy to see how and why he was overshadowed, given the giants that the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors became. Having left on bad terms also didn't help as attempts to attract attention to the Ninth Doctor era were left without the Ninth Doctor himself. I would rate him more in the middle of my list of Doctors, enjoyable and entertaining, but without a central driving reason to push him above any of the others.
Highest Rated Story: The Unquiet Dead - 4.5
Lowest Rated Story: World War Three - 1.5
Average overall rating: 3.25
Rose
The End of the World
The Unquiet Dead
Aliens of London/World War Three
Dalek
The Long Game
Father's Day
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Boom Town
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
If I am God, what does that make you Doctor?
The final adventure of the Ninth Doctor, the culmination of the "Bad Wolf" subplot and the full return of the Daleks. RTD has a reputation for putting together excellent set ups in the penultimate episode and then letting things go out with a whimper in the finale. Does that hold true in his first finale and the end of the Ninth Doctor?
Plot Summary
One hundred years after the events of The Long Game, the Doctor, Rose and Jack wake to find themselves on futuristic versions of 21st century game shows being broadcast from the Game Station (formally Satellite 5). The Doctor is in Big Brother, Rose The Weakest Link and Jack What Not to Wear. The Doctor and Rose are confused and rather nonchalant in each of their shows until they witness other contestants incinerated after failing a level.
The Doctor breaks a camera in the house, causing his immediate eviction. However, his life is spared as the program is overwritten. He leaves the house to the station proper with another contestant, Lynda. Meanwhile, Jack pulls out a gun when the two droids attempt to kill him and he destroys them. Fashioning himself a larger gun, he meets up with the Doctor on the lower floors. The Doctor discovers that when he destroyed the Jagrafess, he left the Earth without any information, causing the society to break down, leading to the dystopia that now exists.
Jack manages to locate Rose's signal and they burst into the game just as she has lost the final round of her game. She runs to the Doctor but the Anne Droid incinerates her. The Doctor, Jack and Lynda are arrested by station security and placed in a holding cell, but the trio overpowers the guards and heads up to the top floor. There they discover the station run by a few workers and a controller.
The station briefly shuts down as a solar flare passes by and the controller comes to herself. She reveals that she brought the Doctor there to thwart the powers controlling her. She is unable to reveal that as the flare passes and the station comes back on-line. Jack discovers the TARDIS in a storage room nearby and using it, he discovers that Rose was not killed. All failed contestants are merely transmatted to a location just outside the solar system.
They discover that the location houses a cloaked Dalek fleet. Aware of their discovery, the Daleks transmat the controller and kill her. They then threaten to kill Rose unless the Doctor surrenders. He refuses and instead vows to rescue Rose and destroy the Daleks.
The Doctor and Jack take the TARDIS across the solar system and materialize it around Rose and her Dalek guard. Jack destroys the Dalek with his gun while the Doctor heads out of the TARDIS. Protected by a force field, the Daleks are unable to gun him down. The Emperor Dalek reveals himself to the Doctor, having survived the Time War. He has rebuilt the Daleks using cellular material from slaughtered humans. The Doctor also discovers that the Emperor Dalek has developed a god complex, infusing all other Daleks with both a religious devotion to him and a self-hatred at their impure state.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to the station where he begins to build a Delta-wave weapon that will fry the Daleks. Jack and the others head down to the first floor to recruit any former contestants to fight and buy the Doctor more time. Only a few do with Jack ordering the rest to stay quiet on the first floor.
Checking his readings, the Doctor discovers that he doesn't have enough time to create a weapon that will only kill Daleks. Instead it will kill both Daleks and humans. He tricks Rose into going into the TARDIS and then sending her back to her family where she is found by Mickey and her mother.
The Daleks arrive at the station and land five floors below the control room. One group of Daleks proceed upwards where they kill the defenders and blast through the defenses Jack had set up. Another group heads down to the first floor and kills all those who refused to fight and stayed below. The Daleks then reconnect and head to the last of the defenses.
Despite attempts to console and convince her, Rose refuses to accept being sent away. She sees more Bad Wolf signs and recognizes them as a symbol for her to help the Doctor. She decides to pry open the TARDIS console and look into the heart of the TARDIS as that would allow her to communicate with it telepathically. Mickey tries but his car doesn't have enough power.
Jackie tries to dissuade her but Rose refuses also forcing Jackie to realize that it was Rose who bent over Pete when he died. Jackie, realizing that it is the right thing to do, borrows a tow truck from a friend. She and Mickey help Rose pry open the TARDIS panel. Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbs time energy directly from the vortex. The TARDIS then disappears as Jackie and Mickey look on.
The Daleks overrun the last of the defenses, killing both Lynda and Jack in route to the control room. As the Daleks enter, the Doctor finishes the delta wave weapon. The Dalek Emperor goads the Doctor to use it but faced with repeating the genocide he committed against his own people to stop the Daleks, the Doctor refuses to discharge the weapon.
As the Daleks move in for the kill, the TARDIS reappears and Rose emerges, full of the time vortex. She admits that she planted the Bad Wolf sign throughout time as a signal to herself. She then atomizes all of the Daleks and even brings Jack back to life. The time energy is killing her though and the Doctor takes her and sucks it out of her through a kiss, releasing most of the energy back into the TARDIS. He then carries an unconscious Rose into the TARDIS and takes off as Jack enters the room to see them go.
Rose wakes with almost no memory of what happened. The Doctor only reminds her of it a little, admitting that he had to absorb most of the time energy, which is now killing him. He comforts her that things will continue but that he must change. He then regenerates into the Tenth Doctor and offers to take her to the planet Barcelona.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this story is pretty good. However, it does suffer from the typical RTD problem of having a really good set up and then petering out at the end. Some fans blame the literal "god out of the machine" ending but that didn't bother me that much. There were several issues that affected the end but I think the primary problem was that Bad Wolf was clearly focused on the Doctor while The Parting of the Ways focused on the companions, specifically Rose.
Throughout both stories, the Doctor was excellent. He was his caviler self at the beginning and then got serious as the scale of the problem reared its head. He was serious and focused, to a point that you could see how dangerous he could be. But at the end, the damaged Doctor who couldn't cope with inflicting large scale violence emerged. Even in Bad Wolf that is apparent as he casually hands off his gun to the people he's supposed to be threatening. It is funny and also a significantly Doctor-ish moment.
In fact, there is almost nothing not to like in Bad Wolf. The characters are engaging, there is humor but also a strong sense of danger. We also get a wonderful fake out with Rose apparently being killed. This is doubly effective because Lynda has asked to come with the Doctor and he is very open to it. It has the exact feel of an old companion being removed and being replaced by a new companion. You buy it, even to the point where Rose is revealed to still be alive as it is easy to imagine the Doctor's rescue of her failing and Lynda still moving on to be the new companion.
The reveal of the Daleks is also excellent. The preview at end of Boomtown spoiled the review for most people. But if you had been ignorant of that, the reveal was very well done. As Rose wakes up and classic fans instantly key on to the Dalek control room sound as it is the only noise. Even as the Daleks enter their reveal is slow. Rose pins herself against a wall as we view through a Dalek eyestalk, just like Barbara did in The Daleks. As others enter, they are shown in reflection and other oblique ways. It is not until they focus on talking to the Doctor that the full scope of the Daleks is made clear. The build is slow and very well done, giving a proper sense of fear that the Daleks deserve.
That fear pervades through the entire invasion. In the whole battle, the Daleks wipe the defenses with relative ease. Only four Daleks are shown to be destroyed or damaged in the entire attack and with multiple Daleks filling the room each time, the overrun is quick and efficient.
Of all the deaths, I found Lynda's to be the best and the most sad. She is trapped in a room waiting for the Daleks to burn their way in when three Daleks rise in front of the window. There is no sound but you see the lights of the Dalek flash and it's like reading lips to know that he is yelling "Exterminate". The window shatters and you don't hear Lynda scream as she is exposed to space. For having such little time, you got to know the character and enjoyed her company. That you started getting into the mindset of thinking of her as a companion also makes her death seem that much more tragic. Jack at least fought up to the end and even had a moment of defiance before being gunned down. It was a death worthy of the character and felt less tragic even though you know Jack a lot more.
So why does it fall apart at the end? Rose. It's no secret that I don't care for Rose that much but I always felt that she meshed fairly well with the Ninth Doctor. Her rough edges matched well with his more caustic personality. But in both episodes, Rose shows almost no redeeming characteristics. She is over the top in her amusement on The Weakest Link until the reality of the situation dawns on her. She also is the only one who does nothing to help herself. Both Jack and the Doctor are able to get themselves out of their situations so she feels bit a useless in Bad Wolf.
It is The Parting of the Ways that exacerbates things though. The focus of the story leaves the Doctor once he sends Rose away, in what is an excellent bit of acting by the Doctor. Once she is back though, while I appreciate her passion to get back to the Doctor, her methods are annoying to me. She is openly insulting to Mickey, noting that her exposure to the Doctor has left her unable to live a normal life the way they do. It is the most condescending attitude for going back to rescue a person one could imagine. It becomes all about her, which is precisely why I don't like Rose.
Even her scene with Jackie should have been more touching. But instead it becomes this angry event, with Rose forcing Jackie to accept the reality as she and the Doctor changed it. I still fail to see how the acceptance that Rose was at her father's side when he died equates with helping to get back to the Doctor. Yes, helping is the right thing to do and Pete would have advocated for that, but almost nothing Rose has done has emphasized that point. It is still all about what she wants.
As far as the climax with her becoming god-like to destroy the Daleks and then the kiss, I don't have a problem with the idea, but the execution fell short. In this, I have to place most of the blame on Billie Piper. Her acting was not up to the challenge of what that scene required. When you see her do a flash of Bad Wolf as the Moment in The Day of the Doctor, you can see how much she has grown as an actress and the fear and power of that comes across much better. In this scene though, it just feels silly.
It doesn't help that Christopher Eccleston also falls short here. His reactions seem overplayed as well. Only the Dalek Emperor seems to be where he needs to be in terms of the reaction. I also thought the kiss was over the top but they were playing the romance angle (something I never saw) between the Ninth Doctor and Rose so that is expected, if also unwelcome.
I thought the regeneration scene was done fairly well, although I wish the Doctor hadn't been quite so jokey before it. I don't mean that I think he should have been tragic and mopey the way the Tenth Doctor was, but his almost maniacal grin right near the end seemed more creepy than anything else. It's almost a relief to get to the Tenth Doctor at the end.
In the end, it was a high that fell to an average. Not as bad as the drop off from other finales but no where near what could have been achieved. I think if Rose had shown even some humility and selflessness in her quest to rejoin the Doctor and if the director had been able to coax the actors to a bit more gravity in the Deus ex Machina scene, the second episode would have had a lot less fall off. I think this story is still quite enjoyable and a must when revisiting the Ninth Doctor, but it's less than what it could have been due to the way things wrapped up.
Overall personal score: Bad Wolf - 4.5 out of 5; The Parting of the Ways - 2.5 out of 5
The final adventure of the Ninth Doctor, the culmination of the "Bad Wolf" subplot and the full return of the Daleks. RTD has a reputation for putting together excellent set ups in the penultimate episode and then letting things go out with a whimper in the finale. Does that hold true in his first finale and the end of the Ninth Doctor?
Plot Summary
One hundred years after the events of The Long Game, the Doctor, Rose and Jack wake to find themselves on futuristic versions of 21st century game shows being broadcast from the Game Station (formally Satellite 5). The Doctor is in Big Brother, Rose The Weakest Link and Jack What Not to Wear. The Doctor and Rose are confused and rather nonchalant in each of their shows until they witness other contestants incinerated after failing a level.
The Doctor breaks a camera in the house, causing his immediate eviction. However, his life is spared as the program is overwritten. He leaves the house to the station proper with another contestant, Lynda. Meanwhile, Jack pulls out a gun when the two droids attempt to kill him and he destroys them. Fashioning himself a larger gun, he meets up with the Doctor on the lower floors. The Doctor discovers that when he destroyed the Jagrafess, he left the Earth without any information, causing the society to break down, leading to the dystopia that now exists.
Jack manages to locate Rose's signal and they burst into the game just as she has lost the final round of her game. She runs to the Doctor but the Anne Droid incinerates her. The Doctor, Jack and Lynda are arrested by station security and placed in a holding cell, but the trio overpowers the guards and heads up to the top floor. There they discover the station run by a few workers and a controller.
The station briefly shuts down as a solar flare passes by and the controller comes to herself. She reveals that she brought the Doctor there to thwart the powers controlling her. She is unable to reveal that as the flare passes and the station comes back on-line. Jack discovers the TARDIS in a storage room nearby and using it, he discovers that Rose was not killed. All failed contestants are merely transmatted to a location just outside the solar system.
They discover that the location houses a cloaked Dalek fleet. Aware of their discovery, the Daleks transmat the controller and kill her. They then threaten to kill Rose unless the Doctor surrenders. He refuses and instead vows to rescue Rose and destroy the Daleks.
The Doctor and Jack take the TARDIS across the solar system and materialize it around Rose and her Dalek guard. Jack destroys the Dalek with his gun while the Doctor heads out of the TARDIS. Protected by a force field, the Daleks are unable to gun him down. The Emperor Dalek reveals himself to the Doctor, having survived the Time War. He has rebuilt the Daleks using cellular material from slaughtered humans. The Doctor also discovers that the Emperor Dalek has developed a god complex, infusing all other Daleks with both a religious devotion to him and a self-hatred at their impure state.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to the station where he begins to build a Delta-wave weapon that will fry the Daleks. Jack and the others head down to the first floor to recruit any former contestants to fight and buy the Doctor more time. Only a few do with Jack ordering the rest to stay quiet on the first floor.
Checking his readings, the Doctor discovers that he doesn't have enough time to create a weapon that will only kill Daleks. Instead it will kill both Daleks and humans. He tricks Rose into going into the TARDIS and then sending her back to her family where she is found by Mickey and her mother.
The Daleks arrive at the station and land five floors below the control room. One group of Daleks proceed upwards where they kill the defenders and blast through the defenses Jack had set up. Another group heads down to the first floor and kills all those who refused to fight and stayed below. The Daleks then reconnect and head to the last of the defenses.
Despite attempts to console and convince her, Rose refuses to accept being sent away. She sees more Bad Wolf signs and recognizes them as a symbol for her to help the Doctor. She decides to pry open the TARDIS console and look into the heart of the TARDIS as that would allow her to communicate with it telepathically. Mickey tries but his car doesn't have enough power.
Jackie tries to dissuade her but Rose refuses also forcing Jackie to realize that it was Rose who bent over Pete when he died. Jackie, realizing that it is the right thing to do, borrows a tow truck from a friend. She and Mickey help Rose pry open the TARDIS panel. Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbs time energy directly from the vortex. The TARDIS then disappears as Jackie and Mickey look on.
The Daleks overrun the last of the defenses, killing both Lynda and Jack in route to the control room. As the Daleks enter, the Doctor finishes the delta wave weapon. The Dalek Emperor goads the Doctor to use it but faced with repeating the genocide he committed against his own people to stop the Daleks, the Doctor refuses to discharge the weapon.
As the Daleks move in for the kill, the TARDIS reappears and Rose emerges, full of the time vortex. She admits that she planted the Bad Wolf sign throughout time as a signal to herself. She then atomizes all of the Daleks and even brings Jack back to life. The time energy is killing her though and the Doctor takes her and sucks it out of her through a kiss, releasing most of the energy back into the TARDIS. He then carries an unconscious Rose into the TARDIS and takes off as Jack enters the room to see them go.
Rose wakes with almost no memory of what happened. The Doctor only reminds her of it a little, admitting that he had to absorb most of the time energy, which is now killing him. He comforts her that things will continue but that he must change. He then regenerates into the Tenth Doctor and offers to take her to the planet Barcelona.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this story is pretty good. However, it does suffer from the typical RTD problem of having a really good set up and then petering out at the end. Some fans blame the literal "god out of the machine" ending but that didn't bother me that much. There were several issues that affected the end but I think the primary problem was that Bad Wolf was clearly focused on the Doctor while The Parting of the Ways focused on the companions, specifically Rose.
Throughout both stories, the Doctor was excellent. He was his caviler self at the beginning and then got serious as the scale of the problem reared its head. He was serious and focused, to a point that you could see how dangerous he could be. But at the end, the damaged Doctor who couldn't cope with inflicting large scale violence emerged. Even in Bad Wolf that is apparent as he casually hands off his gun to the people he's supposed to be threatening. It is funny and also a significantly Doctor-ish moment.
In fact, there is almost nothing not to like in Bad Wolf. The characters are engaging, there is humor but also a strong sense of danger. We also get a wonderful fake out with Rose apparently being killed. This is doubly effective because Lynda has asked to come with the Doctor and he is very open to it. It has the exact feel of an old companion being removed and being replaced by a new companion. You buy it, even to the point where Rose is revealed to still be alive as it is easy to imagine the Doctor's rescue of her failing and Lynda still moving on to be the new companion.
The reveal of the Daleks is also excellent. The preview at end of Boomtown spoiled the review for most people. But if you had been ignorant of that, the reveal was very well done. As Rose wakes up and classic fans instantly key on to the Dalek control room sound as it is the only noise. Even as the Daleks enter their reveal is slow. Rose pins herself against a wall as we view through a Dalek eyestalk, just like Barbara did in The Daleks. As others enter, they are shown in reflection and other oblique ways. It is not until they focus on talking to the Doctor that the full scope of the Daleks is made clear. The build is slow and very well done, giving a proper sense of fear that the Daleks deserve.
That fear pervades through the entire invasion. In the whole battle, the Daleks wipe the defenses with relative ease. Only four Daleks are shown to be destroyed or damaged in the entire attack and with multiple Daleks filling the room each time, the overrun is quick and efficient.
Of all the deaths, I found Lynda's to be the best and the most sad. She is trapped in a room waiting for the Daleks to burn their way in when three Daleks rise in front of the window. There is no sound but you see the lights of the Dalek flash and it's like reading lips to know that he is yelling "Exterminate". The window shatters and you don't hear Lynda scream as she is exposed to space. For having such little time, you got to know the character and enjoyed her company. That you started getting into the mindset of thinking of her as a companion also makes her death seem that much more tragic. Jack at least fought up to the end and even had a moment of defiance before being gunned down. It was a death worthy of the character and felt less tragic even though you know Jack a lot more.
So why does it fall apart at the end? Rose. It's no secret that I don't care for Rose that much but I always felt that she meshed fairly well with the Ninth Doctor. Her rough edges matched well with his more caustic personality. But in both episodes, Rose shows almost no redeeming characteristics. She is over the top in her amusement on The Weakest Link until the reality of the situation dawns on her. She also is the only one who does nothing to help herself. Both Jack and the Doctor are able to get themselves out of their situations so she feels bit a useless in Bad Wolf.
It is The Parting of the Ways that exacerbates things though. The focus of the story leaves the Doctor once he sends Rose away, in what is an excellent bit of acting by the Doctor. Once she is back though, while I appreciate her passion to get back to the Doctor, her methods are annoying to me. She is openly insulting to Mickey, noting that her exposure to the Doctor has left her unable to live a normal life the way they do. It is the most condescending attitude for going back to rescue a person one could imagine. It becomes all about her, which is precisely why I don't like Rose.
Even her scene with Jackie should have been more touching. But instead it becomes this angry event, with Rose forcing Jackie to accept the reality as she and the Doctor changed it. I still fail to see how the acceptance that Rose was at her father's side when he died equates with helping to get back to the Doctor. Yes, helping is the right thing to do and Pete would have advocated for that, but almost nothing Rose has done has emphasized that point. It is still all about what she wants.
As far as the climax with her becoming god-like to destroy the Daleks and then the kiss, I don't have a problem with the idea, but the execution fell short. In this, I have to place most of the blame on Billie Piper. Her acting was not up to the challenge of what that scene required. When you see her do a flash of Bad Wolf as the Moment in The Day of the Doctor, you can see how much she has grown as an actress and the fear and power of that comes across much better. In this scene though, it just feels silly.
It doesn't help that Christopher Eccleston also falls short here. His reactions seem overplayed as well. Only the Dalek Emperor seems to be where he needs to be in terms of the reaction. I also thought the kiss was over the top but they were playing the romance angle (something I never saw) between the Ninth Doctor and Rose so that is expected, if also unwelcome.
I thought the regeneration scene was done fairly well, although I wish the Doctor hadn't been quite so jokey before it. I don't mean that I think he should have been tragic and mopey the way the Tenth Doctor was, but his almost maniacal grin right near the end seemed more creepy than anything else. It's almost a relief to get to the Tenth Doctor at the end.
In the end, it was a high that fell to an average. Not as bad as the drop off from other finales but no where near what could have been achieved. I think if Rose had shown even some humility and selflessness in her quest to rejoin the Doctor and if the director had been able to coax the actors to a bit more gravity in the Deus ex Machina scene, the second episode would have had a lot less fall off. I think this story is still quite enjoyable and a must when revisiting the Ninth Doctor, but it's less than what it could have been due to the way things wrapped up.
Overall personal score: Bad Wolf - 4.5 out of 5; The Parting of the Ways - 2.5 out of 5
Friday, November 11, 2016
Timelash
Do you have a fat, female Morlox with slinky legs?
I had originally planned for my next viewing to be Enlightenment so I could finish off the Black Guardian trilogy. But the version available to me was missing Episode Four so I had to put that one on the back burner until I can get a full and proper version. Instead, I'll tackle another story near the bottom of everyone's list. I don't recall why this one is supposed to be so bad. I only recall that it involves H. G. Wells, which seems like it would be a decent premise. But good premises often fail due to poor execution, so on we go.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is planning a trip to the Andromeda galaxy when Peri walks in and asks if they could take a trip to someplace fun. The Doctor attempts to suggest the Eye of Orion but Peri shoots him down as he has brought that location up a few times too often. He decides to continue on with his planned visit to Andromeda.
On the planet Karfel, a trio of rebels are attempting to escape as they have been exposed. Their planet is ruled by a dictator referred to as the Borad. All three are captured with the leader being executed by the Borad himself and the other two exiled by being pushed through a time vortex called the timelash.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor observes a time vortex opening in front and pulling the TARDIS in. He tries to avoid it but cannot escape it. He and Peri secure themselves to the console and hold on as the TARDIS is rocked about.
One member of the Karfel high council, Mykros, is frustrated by the Borad's rule and follows his soon to be father-in-law, Renis, into a power room. Renis is the Maylin, the head of the high council. He reveals to Mykros how he channels power for the Borad's experiments and a perceived weakness of the Borad. However, they are overheard by a hidden microphone and arrested.
Renis is brought before the Borad and executed. A new man, Tekker, is appointed Maylin and sentences Mykros to exile through the Timelash. Renis' daughter Vena pleads for mercy but when it is denied, she steals the amulet that controls the power supply but accidently falls into the timelash. She passes through the TARDIS as an apparition and materializes in the living room of a young man named Herbert. He believes her to be a spirit but she passes out and he lays her on a couch to recuperate.
The TARDIS materializes in the central hall and the Doctor and Peri emerge. They are welcomed by Maylin Tekker who knows of the Doctor as he had visited fifty years ago with Jo Grant as the Third Doctor. They are shown around and Peri is offered a private tour just after being handed a mysterious note. As Peri goes on her tour, the guards attempt to kill her but she is able to open a door where she finds herself in a system of caves.
Tekker is summoned away by the ambassador of the Bandrils, the people of the neighboring planet. Karfel has violated a peace treaty and has stopped grain shipments to the planet. With famine growing, the Bandrils threaten war unless the shipments start again. Tekker refuses, believing that the Borad will protect them.
Unaware of Peri's escape, Tekker threatens to kill Peri unless the Doctor retrieves the amulet stolen by Vena. The Doctor reluctantly agress and plots the TARDIS along the time corridor created by the timelash. He materializes outside Herbert's cottage and finds Vena inside. She agrees to go along with the Doctor's plan of giving back the amulet but insists on going to, although the Doctor tries to get her to stay with Herbert. Herbert wants to go along as well but the Doctor refuses. However, he manages to sneak aboard while the Doctor is still talking with Vena.
In the caves, Peri is attacked by a snake-like creature called a Morlox. It is beaten off by a cadre of rebels who then take Peri. She convinces them she is with the Doctor and the debate what to do next. However, Tekker's men discovered the note given to Peri, which she accidentally dropped, and come and arrest all of them.
The Doctor arrives back on Karfel and gives up the amulet. However, Tekker reneges on the agreement. Peri is taken away and Tekker instructs an android to push the Doctor into the timelash. The Doctor manages to pull out a mirror he took from Herbert's house which causes the android to malfunction. The rebels use the distraction to turn on and overpower the guards. Tekker and his lackey retreat and the rebels seal the door.
The Doctor finds a coil of strong rope and has the rebels lower him into the timelash. Inside, the cavern is a set of crystals that, when harmonized, produce the time vortex. The Doctor takes several crystals but slips and nearly falls in. Herbert and Mykros enter the timelash along the rope to help pull him out. With the crystals, the Doctor builds a device that pushes him forward ten seconds in time, but leaves an image of what happened in real time. He also develops a weapon to redirect energy from the weapons to transport the source away. The rebels recall seeing a burning android appear shortly before they were captured in the caves and realize that it was the Doctor's weapon.
The guards blow their way through. The rebels manage to take most down with the weapons stolen initially, but the android fights them back, killing one rebel. The Doctor uses his weapon, causing the android to short circuit and then disappear an hour into the past. With the guards beaten back, the Doctor orders the rebels to hide themselves while he goes to see the Borad. Herbert goes with him although the Doctor tries to dissuade him.
Meanwhile Peri has been taken by the guards to a holding cell, where she is equipped with a mechanical device. She is then taken into the caves and secured to a pole to await the Morlox.
The Doctor enters the Borad's quarters while Herbert climbs a ladder and finds a ledge overlooking the area. The Doctor is held at gunpoint by Tekker and the Borad reveals his true form. He is a scientist who was repudiated by the Doctor on his last visit. He was caught in an experiment gone wrong and fused his tissue with that of the Morlox he was experimenting on. He now plans to have the Bandrils destroy the population of Karfel, after which he will destroy the Bandrils. Tekker is appalled at this and tries to stand up to the Borad but the Borad kills him.
The Borad reveals to the Doctor that he plans to repopulate the devastated planet with other humanoid/Morlox hybrids. He has placed Peri in the caves with a lure for the Morlox and the same batch of chemicals that created him. When attacked, the Morlox will rupture the chemicals and create a female version for him to breed with. The Doctor activates his time device and eludes the Borad's attempts to kill him. He reemerges with the device pointed at the Borad who fires at him again. It absorbs the energy and redirects it at the Borad, killing him. The Doctor sends Herbert out to collect Peri while he finds the release mechanism. He releases Peri and Herbert pulls her back into the citadel away from the Morlox.
The group returns to the main chamber where they find that the Bandrils have launched a missile that will devastate the planet. The Doctor is able to contact the Bandrils but they refuse to call off the attack without conformation of the Borad's death. Lacking time, the Doctor heads out to the TARDIS to intercept the missile. Peri tries to go with him but the Doctor forces her to wait on planet. He is unaware that Herbert has snuck aboard until after taking off. He moves the TARDIS in the path of the missile and destroys it before it can hit the planet.
The Bandrils, believing the Doctor has sacrificed himself, call off the attack and prepare to land and negotiate with Mykros, who is the new Maylin. The Doctor arrives, unwilling to disclose how the TARDIS survived the missile impact and the group prepares to depart. However, a clone of the Borad appears and grabs Peri. He threatens to kill her unless the Doctor surrenders and destroys the Bandrils. The Doctor refuses and knocks down an old picture of his Third iteration to reveal a mirror. Unable to look upon himself, the Borad shields his eyes and releases Peri. The Doctor then pushes the Borad into the timelash, where he believes he will land in 12th century Scotland.
The Doctor and Peri prepare to depart, Herbert coming along reluctantly. While he is saying his goodbyes, the Doctor reveals that Herbert is actually H. G. Wells and will be drawing off these experiences for his stories.
Analysis
I really tried to keep an open mind about this one but every time I found something that was good, it was immediately followed by something bad and it just dragged me down. This story has a lot of sins but the worst of them is the fact that it is padded and boring. There were some individual performances that were good, but the story as a whole, both in writing and direction were quite subpar.
There were three characters I rather enjoyed: the Borad, Tekker and Herbert. Herbert had youthful naiveté that was understandable and made him more interesting. Tekker was hammy but it worked both in his toadying villain role and in contrast to the Doctor's own hammy arrogance. The Borad was the best for him. His makeup wasn't bad and he had a restrained performance that actually made him more menacing. His primary flaw was to go into Blofeld mode with the Doctor and explain all his plans before actually killing him. He was more decisive in killing Tekker than he was in killing the Doctor, but it was still enjoyable to watch. Even with the ludicrousness of the clone Borad, there was still a nice rapport between him and the Borad that it made the scene more interesting.
The Doctor was decent in this story. He was still arrogant but I felt he wasn't trying to be overly insulting. It was also nice that he was legitimately thinking his way out of problems rather than letting others do it for him. Peri, on the other hand, was dreadful. She started off wrong in the beginning as the Doctor actually attempts to be civil with her and she acts like a wet blanket about any holiday destination. Once on Karfel, she is separated from him for most of the story and serves only to scream and act the damsel in distress. Then, when the Doctor is racing against time to try and stop the Bandril missile, she refuses to listen to the Doctor and argues until he literally throws her out of the TARDIS. Neither comes across as good but if time is an issue, why are you pressing when you know you are just going to stand there and not be useful? It made Peri so aggravating at that moment.
So that covered the few positives. The negatives are more broad. First the story. Pulling on the works of H. G. Wells seems like it would be a phenomenal idea. However, the works of H. G. Wells are only used on the barest cursory level. It's almost like someone read a paragraph summary of four Wells novels and pulled only one of the ideas mentioned in that summary: the Doctor being invisible during his time jump (The Invisible Man), the Morlox and the TARDIS itself (The Time Machine), animal-human splicing (The Island of Dr. Moreau), and a battle between planets (War of the Worlds).
With all the ideas available and the richness of Wells' text to draw on, the story is boring through nearly all of Episode One. It picks up in Episode Two but once the original Borad dies, the story just drags out, trying to figure out how to fill the last fifteen minutes. It then takes the extremely lazy way out by first not bothering to figure out how the Doctor survived the Bandril missile but also to bring back the Borad for the equivalent of a final jump scare in a horror movie.
There are a lot of logical flaws in the plot as well. I understand why the Borad would hate to look on himself and ban mirrors, but why does a mirror have any effect on an android? Why do most people sent through the timelash end up in 12th century Scotland but Vena manages to land 800 years further in the future? Why would the Borad become the Loch Ness Monster when he still has legs that would allow him to walk out of the lake? Are the tales of his existence in the lake strong enough to last until the Zygons build the mechanical monster several hundred years later? Why don't the Bandrils even acknowledge Myros' attempt to talk with them and call off their attack? They might not believe him, but they should at least be willing to talk with him and maintain a holding pattern to see if the Borad has been overthrown, especially if they are familiar with the Doctor and can wait for his appearance. All of these things pile up and punch huge holes in the story.
The direction of this story is also very flat. Understand the idea that they didn't want the set glossy per the request of the Borad. But to compensate, the people should have been made to pop more. Color could have been used to more effect as could have a different type of shooting style or tape when doing different areas like the timelash itself. Instead it maintains this dull finish throughout. There is also nothing particularly good about the style of direction used. It's a very point one way and shoot rather than using any extra angles or framing to make the shots more interesting.
In the same vein, you have the contrast where the Borad looks very good as does the effects of aging people in his ray but the Morlox themselves look awful. I understand you are limited by budget and time effects, but if a mechanical puppet is the best you can do, light the cave differently so that it takes on a touch more menace. The Morlox looked like an animatronic dinosaur that you would see at any kid's museum and that is something that pulls you right out of the story. When you have that compared to how well other things were realized, it just makes the first thing look worse.
About the only saving grace I can give this story is that due to the quality of acting of a couple of the characters, it is not a story that I would necessarily plop into the bottom five as it typically seems to among fans. But it is not a good story and unless you were working on being a completionist and wanting to watch every story, it could easily be passed over without a second thought.
Overall personal score: 1 out of 5
I had originally planned for my next viewing to be Enlightenment so I could finish off the Black Guardian trilogy. But the version available to me was missing Episode Four so I had to put that one on the back burner until I can get a full and proper version. Instead, I'll tackle another story near the bottom of everyone's list. I don't recall why this one is supposed to be so bad. I only recall that it involves H. G. Wells, which seems like it would be a decent premise. But good premises often fail due to poor execution, so on we go.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is planning a trip to the Andromeda galaxy when Peri walks in and asks if they could take a trip to someplace fun. The Doctor attempts to suggest the Eye of Orion but Peri shoots him down as he has brought that location up a few times too often. He decides to continue on with his planned visit to Andromeda.
On the planet Karfel, a trio of rebels are attempting to escape as they have been exposed. Their planet is ruled by a dictator referred to as the Borad. All three are captured with the leader being executed by the Borad himself and the other two exiled by being pushed through a time vortex called the timelash.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor observes a time vortex opening in front and pulling the TARDIS in. He tries to avoid it but cannot escape it. He and Peri secure themselves to the console and hold on as the TARDIS is rocked about.
One member of the Karfel high council, Mykros, is frustrated by the Borad's rule and follows his soon to be father-in-law, Renis, into a power room. Renis is the Maylin, the head of the high council. He reveals to Mykros how he channels power for the Borad's experiments and a perceived weakness of the Borad. However, they are overheard by a hidden microphone and arrested.
Renis is brought before the Borad and executed. A new man, Tekker, is appointed Maylin and sentences Mykros to exile through the Timelash. Renis' daughter Vena pleads for mercy but when it is denied, she steals the amulet that controls the power supply but accidently falls into the timelash. She passes through the TARDIS as an apparition and materializes in the living room of a young man named Herbert. He believes her to be a spirit but she passes out and he lays her on a couch to recuperate.
The TARDIS materializes in the central hall and the Doctor and Peri emerge. They are welcomed by Maylin Tekker who knows of the Doctor as he had visited fifty years ago with Jo Grant as the Third Doctor. They are shown around and Peri is offered a private tour just after being handed a mysterious note. As Peri goes on her tour, the guards attempt to kill her but she is able to open a door where she finds herself in a system of caves.
Tekker is summoned away by the ambassador of the Bandrils, the people of the neighboring planet. Karfel has violated a peace treaty and has stopped grain shipments to the planet. With famine growing, the Bandrils threaten war unless the shipments start again. Tekker refuses, believing that the Borad will protect them.
Unaware of Peri's escape, Tekker threatens to kill Peri unless the Doctor retrieves the amulet stolen by Vena. The Doctor reluctantly agress and plots the TARDIS along the time corridor created by the timelash. He materializes outside Herbert's cottage and finds Vena inside. She agrees to go along with the Doctor's plan of giving back the amulet but insists on going to, although the Doctor tries to get her to stay with Herbert. Herbert wants to go along as well but the Doctor refuses. However, he manages to sneak aboard while the Doctor is still talking with Vena.
In the caves, Peri is attacked by a snake-like creature called a Morlox. It is beaten off by a cadre of rebels who then take Peri. She convinces them she is with the Doctor and the debate what to do next. However, Tekker's men discovered the note given to Peri, which she accidentally dropped, and come and arrest all of them.
The Doctor arrives back on Karfel and gives up the amulet. However, Tekker reneges on the agreement. Peri is taken away and Tekker instructs an android to push the Doctor into the timelash. The Doctor manages to pull out a mirror he took from Herbert's house which causes the android to malfunction. The rebels use the distraction to turn on and overpower the guards. Tekker and his lackey retreat and the rebels seal the door.
The Doctor finds a coil of strong rope and has the rebels lower him into the timelash. Inside, the cavern is a set of crystals that, when harmonized, produce the time vortex. The Doctor takes several crystals but slips and nearly falls in. Herbert and Mykros enter the timelash along the rope to help pull him out. With the crystals, the Doctor builds a device that pushes him forward ten seconds in time, but leaves an image of what happened in real time. He also develops a weapon to redirect energy from the weapons to transport the source away. The rebels recall seeing a burning android appear shortly before they were captured in the caves and realize that it was the Doctor's weapon.
The guards blow their way through. The rebels manage to take most down with the weapons stolen initially, but the android fights them back, killing one rebel. The Doctor uses his weapon, causing the android to short circuit and then disappear an hour into the past. With the guards beaten back, the Doctor orders the rebels to hide themselves while he goes to see the Borad. Herbert goes with him although the Doctor tries to dissuade him.
Meanwhile Peri has been taken by the guards to a holding cell, where she is equipped with a mechanical device. She is then taken into the caves and secured to a pole to await the Morlox.
The Doctor enters the Borad's quarters while Herbert climbs a ladder and finds a ledge overlooking the area. The Doctor is held at gunpoint by Tekker and the Borad reveals his true form. He is a scientist who was repudiated by the Doctor on his last visit. He was caught in an experiment gone wrong and fused his tissue with that of the Morlox he was experimenting on. He now plans to have the Bandrils destroy the population of Karfel, after which he will destroy the Bandrils. Tekker is appalled at this and tries to stand up to the Borad but the Borad kills him.
The Borad reveals to the Doctor that he plans to repopulate the devastated planet with other humanoid/Morlox hybrids. He has placed Peri in the caves with a lure for the Morlox and the same batch of chemicals that created him. When attacked, the Morlox will rupture the chemicals and create a female version for him to breed with. The Doctor activates his time device and eludes the Borad's attempts to kill him. He reemerges with the device pointed at the Borad who fires at him again. It absorbs the energy and redirects it at the Borad, killing him. The Doctor sends Herbert out to collect Peri while he finds the release mechanism. He releases Peri and Herbert pulls her back into the citadel away from the Morlox.
The group returns to the main chamber where they find that the Bandrils have launched a missile that will devastate the planet. The Doctor is able to contact the Bandrils but they refuse to call off the attack without conformation of the Borad's death. Lacking time, the Doctor heads out to the TARDIS to intercept the missile. Peri tries to go with him but the Doctor forces her to wait on planet. He is unaware that Herbert has snuck aboard until after taking off. He moves the TARDIS in the path of the missile and destroys it before it can hit the planet.
The Bandrils, believing the Doctor has sacrificed himself, call off the attack and prepare to land and negotiate with Mykros, who is the new Maylin. The Doctor arrives, unwilling to disclose how the TARDIS survived the missile impact and the group prepares to depart. However, a clone of the Borad appears and grabs Peri. He threatens to kill her unless the Doctor surrenders and destroys the Bandrils. The Doctor refuses and knocks down an old picture of his Third iteration to reveal a mirror. Unable to look upon himself, the Borad shields his eyes and releases Peri. The Doctor then pushes the Borad into the timelash, where he believes he will land in 12th century Scotland.
The Doctor and Peri prepare to depart, Herbert coming along reluctantly. While he is saying his goodbyes, the Doctor reveals that Herbert is actually H. G. Wells and will be drawing off these experiences for his stories.
Analysis
I really tried to keep an open mind about this one but every time I found something that was good, it was immediately followed by something bad and it just dragged me down. This story has a lot of sins but the worst of them is the fact that it is padded and boring. There were some individual performances that were good, but the story as a whole, both in writing and direction were quite subpar.
There were three characters I rather enjoyed: the Borad, Tekker and Herbert. Herbert had youthful naiveté that was understandable and made him more interesting. Tekker was hammy but it worked both in his toadying villain role and in contrast to the Doctor's own hammy arrogance. The Borad was the best for him. His makeup wasn't bad and he had a restrained performance that actually made him more menacing. His primary flaw was to go into Blofeld mode with the Doctor and explain all his plans before actually killing him. He was more decisive in killing Tekker than he was in killing the Doctor, but it was still enjoyable to watch. Even with the ludicrousness of the clone Borad, there was still a nice rapport between him and the Borad that it made the scene more interesting.
The Doctor was decent in this story. He was still arrogant but I felt he wasn't trying to be overly insulting. It was also nice that he was legitimately thinking his way out of problems rather than letting others do it for him. Peri, on the other hand, was dreadful. She started off wrong in the beginning as the Doctor actually attempts to be civil with her and she acts like a wet blanket about any holiday destination. Once on Karfel, she is separated from him for most of the story and serves only to scream and act the damsel in distress. Then, when the Doctor is racing against time to try and stop the Bandril missile, she refuses to listen to the Doctor and argues until he literally throws her out of the TARDIS. Neither comes across as good but if time is an issue, why are you pressing when you know you are just going to stand there and not be useful? It made Peri so aggravating at that moment.
So that covered the few positives. The negatives are more broad. First the story. Pulling on the works of H. G. Wells seems like it would be a phenomenal idea. However, the works of H. G. Wells are only used on the barest cursory level. It's almost like someone read a paragraph summary of four Wells novels and pulled only one of the ideas mentioned in that summary: the Doctor being invisible during his time jump (The Invisible Man), the Morlox and the TARDIS itself (The Time Machine), animal-human splicing (The Island of Dr. Moreau), and a battle between planets (War of the Worlds).
With all the ideas available and the richness of Wells' text to draw on, the story is boring through nearly all of Episode One. It picks up in Episode Two but once the original Borad dies, the story just drags out, trying to figure out how to fill the last fifteen minutes. It then takes the extremely lazy way out by first not bothering to figure out how the Doctor survived the Bandril missile but also to bring back the Borad for the equivalent of a final jump scare in a horror movie.
There are a lot of logical flaws in the plot as well. I understand why the Borad would hate to look on himself and ban mirrors, but why does a mirror have any effect on an android? Why do most people sent through the timelash end up in 12th century Scotland but Vena manages to land 800 years further in the future? Why would the Borad become the Loch Ness Monster when he still has legs that would allow him to walk out of the lake? Are the tales of his existence in the lake strong enough to last until the Zygons build the mechanical monster several hundred years later? Why don't the Bandrils even acknowledge Myros' attempt to talk with them and call off their attack? They might not believe him, but they should at least be willing to talk with him and maintain a holding pattern to see if the Borad has been overthrown, especially if they are familiar with the Doctor and can wait for his appearance. All of these things pile up and punch huge holes in the story.
The direction of this story is also very flat. Understand the idea that they didn't want the set glossy per the request of the Borad. But to compensate, the people should have been made to pop more. Color could have been used to more effect as could have a different type of shooting style or tape when doing different areas like the timelash itself. Instead it maintains this dull finish throughout. There is also nothing particularly good about the style of direction used. It's a very point one way and shoot rather than using any extra angles or framing to make the shots more interesting.
In the same vein, you have the contrast where the Borad looks very good as does the effects of aging people in his ray but the Morlox themselves look awful. I understand you are limited by budget and time effects, but if a mechanical puppet is the best you can do, light the cave differently so that it takes on a touch more menace. The Morlox looked like an animatronic dinosaur that you would see at any kid's museum and that is something that pulls you right out of the story. When you have that compared to how well other things were realized, it just makes the first thing look worse.
About the only saving grace I can give this story is that due to the quality of acting of a couple of the characters, it is not a story that I would necessarily plop into the bottom five as it typically seems to among fans. But it is not a good story and unless you were working on being a completionist and wanting to watch every story, it could easily be passed over without a second thought.
Overall personal score: 1 out of 5
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